The future of our building infrastructure is hybrid

Isolectra has a heart for circularity. Driven by the social tasks, but especially thanks to the intrinsic motivation of very many employees, the organization is highly committed to refuse, reduce, re-use, repurpose and recycle materials. Its ultimate ambition is to arrive at a new typology for building infrastructures, making significant cable reductions of 80-90% per building theoretically possible.

Isolectra is not only a founder of pluggable installation in the Netherlands, but also a pioneer in the circular economy. The company started the first initiatives 7 years ago to produce more sustainably, improve infrastructure and reduce waste. For example, with the goal of using as few scarce raw materials as possible and leaving as little clutter as possible. "This is reflected in numerous initiatives. For example, our employees come up with fresh and surprising ideas to reduce the use of materials in commercial and residential construction," says general manager Werner Hulst. "A simple example is cleverly accommodating wall sockets, pipes and tubes in prefab walls. But also the application of increasingly advanced pluggable technologies. Whoever chooses 100% pluggable installation, chooses 100% demountable installation. Any changes can be made easily, and at the end of the building life, the pluggable techniques can be easily disassembled and reused elsewhere." Thanks to pluggable installation, cutting losses and waste on site are avoided, says marketing manager Casper Bontenbal. "All materials supplied are actually used. This is an important contribution to the sustainability of buildings, closing the material cycle and the central government's goal of reducing the environmental impact of construction work."

New typology

"Looking at our long-term vision, all our developments are aimed at reducing horizontal building cabling," Hulst says. "With the development of as many high-quality and reusable pluggable installations and hybrid data installations as possible, we want to drastically reduce the amount of plastic and copper cabling in buildings." Reductions of 50%, 60% or more per building are no exception here. "All the steps we are currently taking contribute to this ambition. Moreover, they pave the way for a new typology for building infrastructures."

National Environmental Database

An important step in this context is the inclusion of the Wieland GST18® and RST20® pluggable installation systems in the National Environmental Database (NMD). "Architects, consultants, installers and other stakeholders who prescribe and apply our systems in their projects can use the NMD data to make good product comparisons. But also to calculate and even lower the sustainability and environmental performance of their buildings," says Bontenbal. The NMD aims to provide clear insight into the environmental performance and circularity of structures and is based on the life cycle analysis (LCA) of a building product. In other words, on the total environmental impact from raw material to production and from demolition to recycling. "We have now completed the LCA study. In approximately two years, the environmental impact of our pluggable products has been mapped out. For example, energy and raw material use, waste streams and emissions were quantified and verified by an independent and qualified LCA expert, to be included in the NMD as a Category 1 environmental statement. This provides market participants with the most detailed product information, based on which they can select building products with the least environmental impact."

Hybrid infrastructure

A second important step is to test, possibly refurbish and recertify all pluggable installation materials that come out of our buildings during renovation or dismantling. But also the development of a hybrid infrastructure, where power and data can be delivered over a single cable. Whereas PoE enables electrical power over the data cable, Isolectra deliberately chooses the opposite approach: data transmission over a Plastic Optical Fiber (POF) integrated in the electrical cable. A solution that, according to Bontenbal and Hulst, offers great advantages in utility buildings. After all, this technique leads to significantly less energy and material losses. "The theoretical savings potential is 80-90% on building cabling," they say.

Currently, physical data cables are still pulled from the patch cabinet to every outlet in a building. Hulst: "Each cable in the Netherlands has an average length of 57 meters and contains about 3.4 kilos of material (copper, plastic, separation and chemicals). Moreover, an energy cable has to be looped through, which has to be installed in a separate route because of all kinds of (interference) requirements. The technology we are developing now harmonizes both infrastructures. This allows us to use the same typology for a data point as a socket. This means that with the cable with which we lay the electricity, high-speed data communication can also be arranged. This eliminates the need for separate data cables. In addition, the traditional star connection is replaced by a bus cable, reducing the average cable length to each outlet by approximately 70%. Assuming an average hospital with 20,000 ports, installers can save as much as 80 to 85% of building cabling. This means 80 to 85 tons less material as well as waste."

Support

Isolectra's own office in Rotterdam is already set up according to the new and circular philosophy, but much (further) development is still needed, Hulst acknowledges. Moreover, risks and social benefits have to be priced equally and the market has to get used to the new vision. "That's why we decided to first introduce an integral cable structure for residential construction." Says Bontenbal, "Thanks to our Streda smart installation system, residents can also have high-speed data communication anywhere in their home where there is a wall socket. This makes the home even more flexible and modern. Advantages that - combined with the enormous savings benefits - will hopefully eventually lead to support in non-residential construction."