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Sustainable Construction is Plannable

Green buildings need to incorporate sustainability into the overall planning – not just into individual aspects. The building life cycle needs to be considered as a whole. Such consistent building planning requires predictable data, which in turns requires plannable, adaptable electrical installation. Pluggable installation provides the ideal support for efficient design and implementation of the individual phases and offers added value in all phases of the life cycle. Pluggable installation is the answer.

The Most Important Information at a Glance:

  • Sustainability in construction means sustainability over the entire life cycle of a building: The foundation needs to be laid in the planning phase already.
  • The green building concept also requires convertibility: The technology has to allow rapid modification, sometimes even during ongoing building operation.
  • “The electrical installation needs to allow rapid modification – and this requirement will become even more important in the future.
  • Plannable and adaptable: pluggable installation systems like WINSTA® from WAGO

Green Building Requires Considering the Building as a Whole

Buildings must become more energy efficient and will need to be significantly more sustainable in the future. But what exactly does sustainability mean in the context of buildings? This general concept includes many different aspects, such as:

  • Use of uncontaminated, renewable materials, including raw materials
  • Energy efficiency, i.e. low energy consumption
  • Recycling options – social/health issues (e.g., ergonomic work posture)

Therefore, tying a building’s sustainability to just one aspect is short-sighted. “Sustainable construction/sustainable buildings always require a holistic approach,” says Ann-Christin Rachuba, Vice President Business Unit Interconnection Building at WAGO. Therefore, sustainability needs to be considered in the planning phase already, and every phase of the life cycle requires forward-looking planning. “Thanks to digitalization, this already works very well,” says Rachuba. “Building Information Modeling (BIM) allows us to build a model from the outset, which can then be gradually supplemented and enriched across all building systems. This approach not only stores information; it also makes it easier to access. That in turn makes it easier to determine the input information on energy flows necessary for life cycle assessments.”

Sustainable Construction Focuses on the Building Life Cycle

A building’s life cycle can be divided roughly into four phases:

  • Planning
  • Construction
  • Operation and maintenance
  • Conversion/modernization (dismantling/demolishing buildings has become a less and less popular option, due to increasing attention to sustainability, in both an environmental and an economic sense)

The goal of a green building is to meet as many needs as possible for as long as possible, while using as few resources as possible. Therefore, construction of new buildings needs to take the possibility of future conversion into consideration right from the planning stage and establish conditions that will make this possible. That also applies to technical building services (TBSs), which are not quite as present in the building life cycle, especially electrical installations.

The Building Life Cycle with Pluggable Electrical Installation

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Plannable Installation

In contrast to conventional approaches, pluggable electrical installation already needs to be considered and planned in the initial pre-planning phase. At first glance, this may seem to require more time and effort – but consistent adaptation to contemporary construction methods requires shifting the time and effort from the construction phase to the planning phase in this way. Ultimately, this approach not only saves time during the construction phase and prevents planning errors, but also dovetails with the green building approach. “If I want more sustainable construction, then the electrical installation needs to be predictable, which means it has to be plannable – and pluggable electrical installation offers just that advantage,” explains Rachuba. This requires complete data sets – for example, in order to generate a digital twin, which is already the standard for sustainable building design.

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Flexible Conversion with Pluggable Building Installation

Of course, even with a conventional approach to new building construction, all the technology can be planned in advance as a fully coordinated system. But problems inevitably arise – at the transition to the utilization phase, if not earlier, or if the building needs to be repurposed at a later date. “Then the problem is that not everything is easily accessible anymore,“ says Rachuba. With a conventional approach, conversion generally requires something new to be created where there’s already a branch circuit – in addition to what already exists in the building. “That increases the volume of materials used, which generally has a negative impact on other factors, such as the fire load,” points out Rachuba. “With pluggable installation, I have significantly more flexibility and can also see exactly where everything is. That lets me consider in advance where the best place is to start, which parts of the installation can be retained and which components can be reused for different purposes. Using the models, I can determine the effects beforehand by recalculating the parameters and optimizing them at the same time.

An example: converting a doctor’s office with four rooms, each with two lights, into a daycare center with two rooms, each with four lights. With the plug-and-play approach, components can be replaced quickly and easily.

Existing cables can be reused, as long as they are suitable, or set aside for later applications. For example, if the electricians only change the switching groups, then they can replace some of the other components like the distribution boxes with suitable variants or reuse the same cables at other points. That saves money and conserves resources.

Future-Proof Buildings Allow Easy Expansion

Furthermore, the existing installation needs to allow the possibility of easy expansion with new approaches. This is true now and will become even more relevant as the level of technology and automation in buildings increases. That requires a system that can establish an interface between existing electrical installations and new automation technologies. “Electrical installations also need to be able to adapt to this. Ultimately, the electrical installation can’t be the difficult part,” says Rachuba. “It needs to be a fast, safe, error-free process and as easy as possible to combine with the automation technology.“ With pluggable installation, the latter is already integrated into pre-assembled system distribution boxes prior to the construction phase. The boxes themselves allow pluggable connection; all that remains at the site is to “plug and play,” i.e. to connect them and put them into operation.

Added Value through Certifications

When it comes to certifications, it’s also clear how pluggable installations fit into an efficient building life cycle and the construction of sustainable buildings: Even though electrical installation per se has not attracted the attention of the standard approval agencies like DGNB, breeam and LEED, pluggable installation can have a positive effect on many of the specific factors they assess. “Let’s take DGNB as an example: WINSTA® can have a positive effect on about 50% of the criteria. Pluggable installation means plannability; that fact alone creates the best conditions for the assessment,” explains Rachuba. “This shows that pluggable connection systems are the ideal way to meet the demands that sustainable buildings pose.”

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