Upgrading Energy Efficient Housing and Creating Jobs: It Works Both Ways

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-40
Author(s):  
Frits Meijer ◽  
Henk Visscher
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Housing Associations ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Investment Programme ◽  
The Eu ◽  
New Jobs

The European Commission and EU member states have prioritised the renovation of the existing housing stock as a means of achieving their energy-efficiency targets. As buildings account for 40% of Europe’s energy consumption and much of this is used in the residential sector a major breakthrough could be realized here. Despite the fact that energy saving targets have been prioritized in EU and national policy programme’s, progress is slow. The actual rate and extent of renovations are by fare not enough to achieve the targets. Although the necessity of energy savings is acknowledged by institutional investors in housing, housing associations, individual homeowners and occupants, it appears to be difficult to get sufficient support for energy efficiency renovations. The current economic situation is an additional barrier preventing large scale investments in energy renovating the housing stock. This article connects the realisation of energy efficiency goals with the creation of jobs in the EU. The shift from new-build to renovation will have considerable effects on employment in especially the construction industry and the qualifications required by the workforce. Studies show that for every €1 million investment in the existing building stock in the form of energy renovation work, 12 to 17 new jobs could be created. Potentially this could lead to may new jobs. However, there are many uncertainties in these calculations. Are these direct or indirect jobs, what sectors would benefit, are these jobs created within the EU and what would be the net effect on the labour market? Nonetheless these uncertainties, the positive employment effects will prevail. A new and ambitious investment programme in the housing sector could not only improve the energy performance of the sector but create 100.000’s of valuable jobs at a time when these are seriously needed.

scholarly journals Energy Efficient Improvements of Existing Buildings through Building Envelope Upgrade Case Study of High Rise Block of Flats on 76, Boulevard Partizanski Odredi in Karpos IV, Skopje

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-180
Author(s):  
Katerina Petrushevska
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Living Room ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Class B

AIM: This research examines the important issue of energy efficient improvements to the existing building stock through building envelope upgrade. To facilitate this, the energy performance characteristics of the existing building stock were identified with a view to establishing an existing building stock type, where building envelope upgrades can contribute to a higher level of energy efficiency improvements. The literature review along with the selected building precedents was used to establish the best current practice for building envelope upgrades.MATERIAL AND METHODS: Established building precedents and identified best practice for building envelope upgrade, a high rise block of flats was identified and used as a case study, with the current and predicted, following building envelope upgrade, energy performance of the building calculated. This has allowed us to identify the possible energy efficiency improvements for this type of building following the building envelope upgrade. RESULTS: In the projected case, the building with energy class - "D" become class "B". In addition, increased quality of the living room in the attic was enabled. It was possible to obtain a decrease of the heating energy from 130.76 kWh/m²a to 37.73 kWh/m²a or to jump in the class "B" of energetic passport.CONCLUSION: This research contributes to the local implementation of the global agenda for sustainable development, design and construction, and it demonstrates the possible way and level of energy efficiency improvements to the least efficient building stock through existing building envelope upgrade.

Evaluation of Energy Efficiency in Retrofitting Residential Buildings with Large-Panel Structures

2014 ◽  
Vol 899 ◽  
pp. 24-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emanuel Megyesi ◽  
Mariana Brumaru
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Calculation Methods ◽  
East European ◽  
Large Panel ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Reduction Of Co2 ◽  
The Eu

Modular blocks of flats built with large prefabricated panels have become widespread in most of central and East-European countries particularly in the 80es, populating large-scale neighbourhoods. In Romania are representing about 37% of the total fund of apartment blocks, being present in most of the cities. The high percentage of thermal bridges and reduced design thermal resistance of the envelope make these buildings a priority in thermal retrofitting. Using up-to-date calculation methods, the paper presents a thorough analysis of the energy performance of large-panel residential buildings (apartment blocks) before and after renovation. The conclusions are focused on the practical measures to be undertaken for bringing the energy efficiency after retrofitting at the highest possible degree, thus meeting the requirements of the EU legislation and the targets set in the field of energy performance and reduction of CO2 emissions.

scholarly journals Characterising the English school stock using a unified national on-site survey and energy database

2021 ◽  
pp. 014362442110306
Author(s):  
Sung Min Hong ◽  
Daniel Godoy-Shimizu ◽  
Yair Schwartz ◽  
Ivan Korolija ◽  
Anna Mavrogianni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Census Data ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Site Survey ◽  
Property Data ◽  
Operational Energy ◽  
Data Survey

The recent commitment towards a net-zero target by 2050 will require considerable improvement to the UK’s building stock. Accounting for over 10% of the services energy consumption of the United Kingdom, the education sector will play an important role. This study aims to improve the understanding of English primary and secondary schools, using national on-site survey data with several large-scale disaggregate data sources. Property Data Survey Programme (PDSP) data on 18,970 schools collected between 2012 and 2014, Display Energy Certificate (DEC) and school census data from the same period were linked and processed to form a unified schools dataset. Statistical analyses were undertaken on 10,392 schools, with a focus on energy performance, and the relationship to several building and system characteristics. The analyses may point to the possibility of assessing operational energy use of schools in a more disaggregate manner. New datasets with detailed and accurate disaggregate information on characteristics of buildings, such as those used in this study, provide opportunities to develop more robust models of the building stock. Such data would provide an opportunity to identify pathways for reducing carbon emissions effectively and provide lessons for other organisations seeking to achieve significant reductions for achieving climate change goals. Practical Application: Outputs from this study are expected to benefit researchers in various organisations to establish a basis for typical buildings and their performance, facilities managers to assess the operational energy efficiency of school buildings, and relevant public bodies to make informed decisions on improving energy efficiency of the school stock.

scholarly journals Method for Scalable and Automatised Thermal Building Performance Documentation and Screening

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 3866 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoffer Rasmussen ◽  
Peder Bacher ◽  
Davide Calì ◽  
Henrik Aalborg Nielsen ◽  
Henrik Madsen
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Solar Irradiation ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Performance Parameters ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Outdoor Temperature ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Energy Signature

In Europe, more and more data on building energy use will be collected in the future as a result of the energy performance of buildings directive (EPBD), issued by the European Union. Moreover, both at European level and globally it became evident that the real energy performance of new buildings and the existing building stock needs to be documented better. Such documentation can, for example, be done with data-driven methods based on mathematical and statistical approaches. Even though the methods to extract energy performance characteristics of buildings are numerous, they are of varying reliability and often associated with a significant amount of human labour, making them hard to apply on a large scale. A classical approach to identify certain thermal performance parameters is the energy signature method. In this study, an automatised, nonlinear and smooth approach to the well-known energy signature is proposed, to quantify key thermal building performance parameters. The research specifically aims at describing the linear and nonlinear heat usage dependency on outdoor temperature, wind and solar irradiation. To make the model scalable, we realised it so that it only needs the daily average heat use of buildings, the outdoor temperature, the wind speed and the global solar irradiation. The results of applying the proposed method on heat consumption data from 16 different and randomly selected Danish occupied houses are analysed.

scholarly journals Progress and Stagnation of Renovation, Energy Efficiency, and Gentrification of Pre-War Walk-Up Apartment Buildings in Amsterdam Since 1995

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 2590
Author(s):  
Leo Oorschot ◽  
Wessel De Jonge
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Affordable Housing ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Housing Associations ◽  
Ring Road ◽  
Slowing Down ◽  
Apartment Buildings

Increasing the energy efficiency of the housing stock has been one of the largest challenges of the built environment in the Netherlands in recent decades. Parallel with the energy transition there is an ongoing revaluation of the architectural quality of pre-war residential buildings. In the past, urban renewal was traditionally based on demolition and replacement with new buildings. This has changed to the improvement of old buildings through renovation. Housing corporations developed an approach for the deep renovation of their housing stock in the period 1995–2015. The motivation to renovate buildings varied, but the joint pattern that emerged was quality improvement of housing in cities, focusing particularly on energy efficiency, according to project data files from the NRP institute (Platform voor Transformatie en Renovatie). However, since 2015 the data from the federation of Amsterdam-based housing associations AFWC (Amsterdamse Federatie Woningcorporaties) has shown the transformation of pre-war walk-up apartment buildings has stagnated. The sales of units are slowing down, except in pre-war neighbourhoods. Housing associations have sold their affordable housing stock of pre-war property in Amsterdam inside the city’s ring road. The sales revenue was used to build new affordable housing far beyond the ring road. This study highlights the profound influence of increasing requirements established by the European Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) and the revised Housing Act of 1 July 2015, for the renovation of the pre-war housing stock. The transformation process to climate-neutral neighbourhoods inside the ring road is slowing down because of new property owners, making a collective heat network difficult to realize; furthermore, segregation of residents is appearing in Amsterdam.

scholarly journals HVAC’s Role in the Decarbonisation of the Existing BuildingStock - case Finland

2021 ◽  
Vol 246 ◽  
pp. 13005
Author(s):  
Terttu Vainio ◽  
Eero Nippala ◽  
Timo Kauppinen
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Efficient ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Automation ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Target State ◽  
Automation Systems

The Energy Performance of Buildings Directive together with the Energy Efficiency Directive and Renewable Energy Sources Directive define the frame and target state for energy performance of the existing building stock. This should be very energy efficient and decarbonised by 2050. The Finnish target is more ambitious, to achieve the target state already in 2035. In this paper, we discuss and concretise the role of HVAC in overcoming the challenge. Buildings in the Nordic countries are already very energy efficient. Structural improvements of energy efficiency are relatively expensive and have limited potential for energy saving. The best cost-benefit ratio can be obtained by combining HVAC with dynamic building automation systems. Also the EPBD calls for improvement of building automation systems and related measurements in new as well as existing buildings. The performance of buildings can be verified and deviations can be detected by monitoring-based commissioning during their life cycle. This means that special attention must be paid to the instrumentation level and an improved online reporting system for stakeholders. As a conclusion, we see that HVAC systems are in a key role in decarbonisation of existing buildings and a strategic sector on the way to a carbon-neutral society.

scholarly journals Experimental Data and Simulations of Performance and Thermal Comfort in a Typical Mediterranean House

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3311
Author(s):  
Víctor Pérez-Andreu ◽  
Carolina Aparicio-Fernández ◽  
José-Luis Vivancos ◽  
Javier Cárcel-Carrasco
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Natural Ventilation ◽  
Thermal Characterization ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Energy Demands ◽  
Dwelling House ◽  
Account Standard

The number of buildings renovated following the introduction of European energy-efficiency policy represents a small number of buildings in Spain. So, the main Spanish building stock needs an urgent energy renovation. Using passive strategies is essential, and thermal characterization and predictive tests of the energy-efficiency improvements achieving acceptable levels of comfort for their users are urgently necessary. This study analyzes the energy performance and thermal comfort of the users in a typical Mediterranean dwelling house. A transient simulation has been used to acquire the scope of Spanish standards for its energy rehabilitation, taking into account standard comfort conditions. The work is based on thermal monitoring of the building and a numerical validated model developed in TRNSYS. Energy demands for different models have been calculated considering different passive constructive measures combined with real wind site conditions and the behavior of users related to natural ventilation. This methodology has given us the necessary information to decide the best solution in relation to energy demand and facility of implementation. The thermal comfort for different models is not directly related to energy demand and has allowed checking when and where the measures need to be done.

scholarly journals RINNO: Towards an Open Renovation Platform for Integrated Design and Delivery of Deep Renovation Projects

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6018
Author(s):  
Theo Lynn ◽  
Pierangelo Rosati ◽  
Antonia Egli ◽  
Stelios Krinidis ◽  
Komninos Angelakoglou ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Integrated Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Horizon 2020 ◽  
Regulatory Standards ◽  
Automation Systems ◽  
Wide Range

The building stock accounts for a significant portion of worldwide energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. While the majority of the existing building stock has poor energy performance, deep renovation efforts are stymied by a wide range of human, technological, organisational and external environment factors across the value chain. A key challenge is integrating appropriate human resources, materials, fabrication, information and automation systems and knowledge management in a proper manner to achieve the required outcomes and meet the relevant regulatory standards, while satisfying a wide range of stakeholders with differing, often conflicting, motivations. RINNO is a Horizon 2020 project that aims to deliver a set of processes that, when working together, provide a system, repository, marketplace and enabling workflow process for managing deep renovation projects from inception to implementation. This paper presents a roadmap for an open renovation platform for managing and delivering deep renovation projects for residential buildings based on seven design principles. We illustrate a preliminary stepwise framework for applying the platform across the full-lifecycle of a deep renovation project. Based on this work, RINNO will develop a new open renovation software platform that will be implemented and evaluated at four pilot sites with varying construction, regulatory, market and climate contexts.

Deep renovation up to zero energy through Add-ons: the ABRACADABRA Project

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annarita Ferrante ◽  
Fabrizio Ungaro ◽  
Giovanni Semprini ◽  
Lorna Dragonetti ◽  
Elettra Agliardi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
The Real Estate ◽  
International Projects ◽  
Eu Project ◽  
The Eu

<p>and international projects</p><p>various EU H2020 projects</p><p>Though housing is one of the most energy consumer sectors, it is currently extremely underestimated, because of a clear investment gap due to economic, social and legislative barriers. The EU project ABRACADABRA (Assistant Building to Retrofit, Adopt, Cure And Develop the Actual Buildings up to zeRo energy, Activating a market for deep renovation) is based on the idea that the real estate value increase given by the appropriate densification strategy in urban environments could be an opportunity to activate a market for deep energy renovation. To prove the effectiveness of the strategy more than 70 case studies throughout the EU cities have been assessed by means of a cost-effective analysis. Basing on the parametric variation of the different values involved (cost of construction, energy, etc.) the benefit of this strategy has been proved in the majority of the different building types and contexts.</p><p>More interestingly, the ABRA strategy has been simulated and tested outside Europe in order to verify its scalability and the possibility of considering other non-energy related benefits in the renovation of the existing building stock. A specific study on the NYC urban context has been conducted to effectively adapt the strategy and combine the global drivers of energy consumption reduction and CO<span>2</span> emission reduction with the local need of combating flood emergency and related flood-proofing measures.</p><p>The results reached by this work demonstrate how the energy retrofit trough add-ons reduces significantly the payback times of the investments, preserve soil consumption, while providing a extraordinary opportunity to enhance urban resiliency by challenging the local emergencies.</p>

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