scholarly journals Proposal for Prioritizing the Retrofitting of Residential Buildings in Energy Poverty Circumstances

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 66-79
Author(s):  
Silvia Perez-Bezos ◽  
Olatz Grijalba ◽  
Olatz Irulegi
Keyword(s):  
Social Housing ◽  
Prolonged Exposure ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Actual State ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Energy Poverty ◽  
Definition Of

AbstractThe energy poverty derived from socio-economic imbalances affects mostly households with fewer economic resources, being social housing complexes one of the most vulnerable sectors. The insufficient access to energy and the incapability to maintain dwellings at an adequate temperature can have negative impact on people’s health due to the prolonged exposure to poor hygrothermal conditions. Therefore, the prioritization of building retrofitting actions must be carried out regarding the actual state of the housing and the family economy. This paper proposes the definition of a prioritization map that gave a general knowledge of the energy vulnerability situation of the existing building stock. To this end, the dwelling’s energy performance is analysed, focusing on the correlation among its characteristics and the energy vulnerability of its inhabitants. In this way, dwellings with high energy poverty potential are identified in order to develop different energy retrofitting strategies. By applying this method to 14 case studies of social housing in Bilbao, Spain, it was obtained a prioritization map with six levels of vulnerability that can serve as a tool for public entities to design their future strategies. It has been proven that building compactness and year of construction are important factors with a great impact on the heating demand and final consumption in dwellings. Acknowledging the vulnerability context of the building stock eases the decision-making process and the definition of intervention guidelines, prioritizing those in a situation of greater vulnerability.

scholarly journals Towards Nearly-Zero Energy in Heritage Residential Buildings Retrofitting in Hot, Dry Climates

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 13934
Author(s):  
Hanan S. S. Ibrahim ◽  
Ahmed Z. Khan ◽  
Yehya Serag ◽  
Shady Attia
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Heritage Buildings ◽  
Dry Climates

Retrofitting “nearly-zero energy” heritage buildings has always been controversial, due to the usual association of the “nearly-zero energy” target with high energy performance and the utilization of renewable energy sources in highly regarded cultural values of heritage buildings. This paper aims to evaluate the potential of turning heritage building stock into a “nearly-zero energy” in hot, dry climates, which has been addressed in only a few studies. Therefore, a four-phase integrated energy retrofitting methodology was proposed and applied to a sample of heritage residential building stock in Egypt along with microscale analysis on buildings. Three reference buildings were selected, representing the most dominant building typologies. The study combines field measurements and observations with energy simulations. In addition, simulation models were created and calibrated based on monitored data in the reference buildings. The results show that the application of hybrid passive and active non-energy generating scenarios significantly impacts energy use in the reference buildings, e.g., where 66.4% of annual electricity use can be saved. Moreover, the application of solar energy sources approximately covers the energy demand in the reference buildings, e.g., where an annual self-consumption of electricity up to 78% and surplus electricity up to 20.4% can be achieved by using photo-voltaic modules. Furthermore, annual natural gas of up to 66.8% can be saved by using two unglazed solar collectors. Lastly, achieving “nearly-zero energy” was possible for the presented case study area. The originality of this work lies in developing and applying an informed retrofitting (nearly-zero energy) guide to be used as a benchmark energy model for buildings that belong to an important historical era. The findings contribute to fill a gap in existing studies of integrating renewable energy sources to achieve “nearly-zero energy” in heritage buildings in hot climates.

scholarly journals Linking Energy Poverty with Thermal Building Regulations and Energy Efficiency Policies in Portugal

Energies ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 329
Author(s):  
Ana Mafalda Matos ◽  
João M. P. Q. Delgado ◽  
Ana Sofia Guimarães
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Winter Season ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Energy Prices ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Energy Poverty ◽  
Building Regulations ◽  
Energy Efficiency Policies

Energy-poverty (EP) must be considered an energy-related issue since buildings are a central part of people’s daily lives. Thus, it has an important role in energy-related policy implementation. Even though the European Union (EU) has endorsed general energy efficiency through the Energy Efficiency Directive and Energy Performance of Buildings Directive recast, it was the Clean Energy Package for all Europeans that clearly highlighted EP. The growing concerns with EP have also been emphasised in subsequent directives and initiatives. Despite some regulatory framework and the milder climate situation, the proportion of the population experiencing thermal discomfort in southern and eastern European countries, namely in the winter season, is relatively high, reflecting the poor thermal performance of building stock, low family incomes and high energy prices, among others. The current work analysed the EP evolution in Portugal in the EU context, and the Thermal Building Regulations and Energy Efficiency Policies developed, aiming to add insight into the effectiveness of those policies concerning EP mitigation in Portugal as an EU Member state. Moreover, a critical debate on the potential to lower the EP Portuguese situation was also an objective to pursue. It is plausible to admit that reducing EP by acting on residential building stock, namely through the increase of energy efficiency and comfort, plays a key role in improving the living conditions, namely of vulnerable households and deprived areas. This will also decrease energy consumption and dependence while further promoting a smarter, sustainable and inclusive society, contributing to economic growth.

scholarly journals Assessment of Current Energy Consumption in Residential Buildings in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Buildings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Felimban ◽  
Alejandro Prieto ◽  
Ulrich Knaack ◽  
Tillmann Klein ◽  
Yasser Qaffas
Keyword(s):  
Saudi Arabia ◽  
Thermal Properties ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Electricity Consumption ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
User Awareness ◽  
Current Energy

In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), residential buildings’ energy consumption accounts for almost 50% of the building stock electricity consumption. The KSA’s economy relies heavily on fossil fuel sources, namely oil reservoirs, whose depletion will negatively affect the future development of the country. The total electricity consumption is growing by approximately 5–8% annually, which would lead to oil production and oil consumption being equal in 2035. Therefore, residential buildings need further assessment as regards their current energy consumption. This research used a survey to explore current user behaviour in residential buildings’ energy performance in the city of Jeddah, KSA. The findings of the survey show that several factors impact the energy performance in residential buildings. First, the buildings’ thermal properties were found to be poorly designed. Second, the cultural aspects (family member role and generous hospitality), and the majority of users within the buildings preferring a room temperature of below 24 °C, requires a massive amount of cooling due to the climate conditions. Third, an increase in user awareness has helped to slightly improve residential buildings’ energy efficiency. Knowing the current high-energy-consumption sources and causes, being able to define opportunities for thermal properties’ enhancement, and increasing user awareness of how to achieve self-sustaining buildings are essential.

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.

scholarly journals Energy Rehabilitation of Social Housing in Vulnerable Areas. Case study: a 1950s Building in a Medium-sized Mediterranean City

2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Ruá María José ◽  
Huedo Patricia ◽  
Cabeza Manuel ◽  
Saez Beatriz ◽  
Civera Vicente
Keyword(s):  
Low Income ◽  
Social Housing ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Performance Simulation ◽  
Urban Level

In the urban context, buildings play a key role as they are energy consumers. In well-established cities with a high percentage of aged building stock, the focus should lie on sensitive urban areas where the weakest population sectors and the worst physico-economic conditions are usually encountered. In this work, the energy refurbishment of social housing is proposed. A block of municipally owned buildings is selected as a case study to consider that public buildings play an exemplary role according to Directive 2012/27/EU. The group is formed by 12 buildings, which account for 120 dwellings.This study is grounded on two levels. First the urban level. The building is located in a prioritised urban Area of Rehabilitation, Renovation and Urban Regeneration (ARRU), according to the new local Land Plan. This area presents multidimensional vulnerability and considers urban, building, socio-demographic and socio-economic features. Second, the building presents very low energy performance. It was built in 1959 when a high demand of dwellings and the economic resources then available led to low-quality buildings that are far from meeting today’s standards.Some proposals are made, having in mind the specific features of the urban context. The energy refurbishment of the building is proposed, selecting the optimal solution, considering technical, environmental and economic criteria. The energy performance simulation shows a remarkable improvement of the energy performance, resulting in an improvement of the thermal comfort of the dwellers. Besides, a reduction in the energy consumption is reached, which would reduce the energy bills and, on the other hand, a reduction of the carbon emissions to the atmosphere, contributing to a better environment quality. Having in mind that the building is intended for social housing, energy poverty situations could be avoided, as dwellings are inhabited by low-income dwellers.

Energy Efficiency in French Social Housing Renovations via Design-Build-Maintain

2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 48-56
Author(s):  
Tadeo Baldiri Salcedo Rahola ◽  
Ad Straub ◽  
Angela Ruiz Lázaro ◽  
Yves Galiègue
Keyword(s):  
Social Housing ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Substantial Improvement ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Delivery Methods ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Design Build ◽  
Bonuses And Penalties ◽  
Design Bid Build

The renovation of existing building stock is seen as one the most practical ways to achieve the high energy savings targets for the built environment defined by European authorities. In France, the Grenelle environmental legislation addresses the need to renovate the building stock and specifically stresses the key role of social housing organisations. In recent years, French procurement rules have been modified in order to allow social housing organisations to make use of integrated contracts such as Design-Build-Maintain. These contracts have a greater potential to deliver energy savings in renovation projects than do traditional project delivery methods, like Design-bid-Build. This is because they facilitate collaboration between the various actors and boost their commitment to the achievement of project goals. In order to evaluate the estimated potential of such contracts to achieve energy savings, two renovation projects (carried out by two French social housing organisations) were analysed from their inception until the end of construction work. The analysis is based on written tender documents, technical evaluation reports, observations of the negotiation phase (in one of the cases) and interviews with the main actors involved. Findings show that Design-Build-Maintain contracts do indeed offer substantial energy savings. Both projects achieved higher energy targets than those initially required. Furthermore, the energy results are guaranteed by the contractor, through a system of bonuses and penalties. Other results demonstrate that, compared to previous Design-bid-Build renovation projects, these projects were completed in less time (from project inception to completion of the work) and at virtually the same cost. There has also been a substantial improvement in cooperation between the actors involved.

scholarly journals Application of sensitivity analysis and genopt to optimize the energy performance of a building in Morocco

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 2068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelhadi Serbouti ◽  
Mourad Rattal ◽  
Abdellah Boulal ◽  
Mohammed Harmouchi ◽  
Azeddine Mouhsen
Keyword(s):  
Sensitivity Analysis ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
High Energy ◽  
Performance Requirement ◽  
Input Parameters ◽  
Sensitivity Analysis Method ◽  
Python Programming ◽  
Industry Sectors ◽  
High Energy Consumption

The worldwide demographic and economic growth increases the global need for energy and directly contributes to climate change. In Morocco, the residential real estate is the third largest consumer of energy after transport and industry sectors. Thus, the aim of this study is to help engineers improve the energy performance of residential buildings by coupling the TRNSYS software both with a sensitivity analysis method and with an optimization tool. In fact, sensitivity analysis allows reducing the number of input parameters of any studied model, by ranking their degree of impact on any chosen output, and then discard the parameters with the least influence on that output. To do so, we developed algorithms in Python programming language to combine the open source library SALib, available in Github platform, with the TRNSYS software. Then, the chosen input parameters can be optimized through coupling the generic optimization program Genopt with TRNSYS. This article will also explain how these tools were applied to reduce the heating & air-conditioning needs of a high-energy consumption building in Morocco, while studying the variation of nineteen input parameters in TRNSYS. The main aim is to meet the energy performance requirement of the Moroccan thermal regulation for buildings.  

scholarly journals Accelerating Energy Renovation Solution for Zero Energy Buildings and Neighbourhoods—The Experience of the RenoZEB Project

Proceedings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michele Vavallo ◽  
Marco Arnesano ◽  
Gian Marco Revel ◽  
Asier Mediavilla ◽  
Ane Ferreiro Sistiaga ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
European Level ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
A Value ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
New Buildings

Buildings are the key factor to transform cities and to contribute to recent European energy efficiency objectives for 2030 and long-term 2050. New buildings account to only 1–2% annually. Yet, ninety percent of the existing building stock in Europe was built before 1990, it is therefore necessary to promote their energy renovation to achieve the set objectives. Renovation solutions are available on the market, yet a wrong implementation and integration due to a lack of knowledge neither maximizes the energy performance of the post-retrofitting nor the financial optimisation and viability of the projects. This paper presents research on a plug & play, modular, easy installable façade and ICT decision making technologies to provide affordable solutions in order to overcome those deep renovation barriers. The paper sets out by defining a value framework that can be applied by real estate investors for making better retrofitting decisions for residential buildings, through mapping targeted building typologies and investigating new building revalorisation strategies, new renovation concepts and KPIs for evaluation. Thereafter the paper presents the modular and easy-to-install façade system that is replicable and scalable at European level.

scholarly journals Impact of COVID-19 on the Level of Energy Poverty in Poland

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (18) ◽  
pp. 4977
Author(s):  
Rafal Nagaj ◽  
Jaroslaw Korpysa
Keyword(s):  
Negative Impact ◽  
Scientific Data ◽  
Disposable Income ◽  
Energy Poverty ◽  
Household Energy ◽  
Energy Carriers ◽  
Financial Difficulties ◽  
Polish Economy ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Impact

The main objective of the paper is to determine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the level of energy poverty in Poland. In order to achieve such a goal, the first part of the article presents the definition of energy poverty and the nature of its measures, as well as the determinants and policies of the state addressing the issue of energy poverty mitigation. In the second part of the paper, the results of research into the level of energy poverty are analyzed and the variables affecting energy poverty in Poland during the pandemic are determined. It was established on the basis of these results that the present pandemic contributed to the aggravation of financial difficulties in Polish households with regard to financing expenditure on energy carriers. It was found that COVID-19 had a negative impact on the average disposable income of Polish households, which, with the increase in prices and expenditure on energy carriers, led to an increase in the proportion of disposable income spent on energy carriers. The most affected have been the poorest households. Moreover, the long downward trend in the level of energy poverty in Poland has reversed. Thus, it has been proved that COVID-19 has contributed to the intensification of energy poverty in Poland. The theoretical and empirical considerations contained in this paper may be a valuable source of scientific data on the impact of the pandemic on household energy poverty, while public institutions may find them a source of useful information, helping to create effective instruments to mitigate energy poverty in the Polish economy.

scholarly journals Overview of the Available Knowledge for the Data Model Definition of a Building Renovation Passport for Non-Residential Buildings: The ALDREN Project Experience

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 642 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Maria Sesana ◽  
Mathieu Rivallain ◽  
Graziano Salvalai
Keyword(s):  
Data Model ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Co2 Reduction ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Data Links ◽  
The One ◽  
High Level

According to its strategic long-term vision, Europe wants to be a climate-neutral economy by 2050. Buildings play a crucial role in this vision, and they represent a sector with low-cost opportunities for high-level CO2 reduction. The challenge the renovation of the existing building stock, which must be increased to 3%/year, more than double compared to the current 1.2%/year. In this context, the ALliance for Deep RENovation (ALDREN) project has the goal of encouraging property owners to undertake renovation of existing buildings using a clear, robust, and comparable method. This paper aims to present the ALDREN approach and the ALDREN Building Renovation Passport (BRP), giving an overview of the connections and data links to other existing databases and certification schemes. To understand the data value potential of buildings, one requires reliable and trustworthy information. The Building Renovation Passport, introduced by the recent Energy Performance Building Directive (EPBD) recast 844/2018/EU, aims to provide this information. This paper presents the experience of the ALDREN BRP for non-residential buildings as well as the development procedure for its data model and the potential that this tool could have for the construction market. The ALDREN BRP has been structured into two main parts—BuildLog and RenoMap—with a common language that facilitates communication on the one hand and, on the other, the setting of renovation targets based on lifetime, operation, and user needs.

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