Suchergebnisse

Overview on energy related legislation concerning technical buildings systems in new and existing buildings.

The low energy building definition was introduced at various times across Europe. Some countries have even had different definitions of low energy buildings at different periods of time. The 22 answers received included 7 countries with an existing official definition and 7 countries with a planned official definition. Four countries have "only" an existing non-governmental definition. Four countries have both existing official and non-governmental definitions of low energy buildings. The following countries have an official definition concerning very low energy buildings: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany and United Kingdom (England and Wales). Even though the calculation methods are in accordance with the definitions in the EPBD and thus the relevant CEN standards, there are national deviations that make a cross-country comparison of the calculated energy performance difficult. One way of promoting very low energy buildings is by various direct or indirect actions that make these kinds of buildings more attractive. The most popular support for low energy buildings is e.g. loans with low interest rates to finance low energy buildings. This is done either by means of official subsidies or via private investment organisations. Another possibility is lower taxes for low energy buildings or the introduction of CO2 taxes. Furthermore mandatory certification schemes are expected to promote very low energy buildings by introduction of grades restricted to buildings with very high energy performance. It is important to stress the need for MS to introduce a national or regional definition of very low energy buildings in their building regulation and to develop a national strategy towards this level of energy performance to become the standard. This market transformation is a big challenge for the partners in the building sector and has just started the "learning curve" from being a concept of very low energy houses as a "grass-root" concept to becoming an official requirement in a very short time. It is important that the European Commission initiate actions to follow the ambition in the EU Action plan - to develop an EU strategy towards very low energy houses. The current recast of the EPBD is an opportunity, which must not be missed to introduce the requirement to MS to define very low energy buildings and a national strategy towards this level of energy performance. A strategy for improved energy efficiency of existing buildings is a necessity if the energy consumption is to be reduced significantly over a limited period of time. The life time of buildings ranges from 50 to 100 years and improvement of the existing building stock will thus have much higher impact than the tightening of requirements for new buildings. Belgium (Flanders) plans tighten the requirements for existing buildings. Most countries have planned revision of their legislation within the next 5 years, and a few countries have also targets for new energy requirement in 2015 and 2020. A long-term objective is an effective instrument to achieve highly energy efficient buildings, as well as a valuable tool and guideline for the construction sector.

'School of the Future' is a collaborative project within the 7th Framework Programme of the European Union in the energy sector. It started in February 2011 and will run for 5 years. The aim of the "School of the Future" project is to design, demonstrate, evaluate and communicate shining examples of how to reach the future high performance building level. School buildings and their primary users: pupils – the next generations – are in the focus of the project. Both, the energy and indoor environment performance of 4 demo buildings in 4 European countries and climates will be greatly improved due to holistic retrofit of the building envelope, the service systems, the integration of renewables and building management systems. The results and the accompanying research and dissemination efforts to support other actors dealing with building retrofits will lead to a multiplied impact on other schools and on the residential sector, since the pupils will act as communicators to their families. The user behaviour and the awareness of energy efficiency and indoor environment will be improved due to tailored training sessions.

The next level of energy performance of new buildings within the European Union will be the Nearly Zero-Energy Building (NZEB). A lot of work has been spent on pilot and demonstration buildings on this and even higher energy performance levels throughout many EU countries. However, most of the high performance buildings realised so far result in additional investment costs when compared to the current national minimum energy performance requirements. The considerably higher investment costs are one of the main barriers to the early application of the NZEB-level in Europe. The EU Horizon 2020 project CoNZEBs works on technical solution sets that result in lower investment costs for NZEBs, bringing the costs close to those of conventional new buildings. The project focus is on multi-family houses. In each of the four participant countries Germany, Denmark, Italy and Slovenia a team of researchers is analysing which sets of market-ready technologies at the building envelope, the services systems for heating, domestic hot water, ventilation and cooling (where required) in combination with renewable energy systems can fulfil the NZEB requirements at lower costs than those incurred by the national mainstream NZEB application. Additional efforts are being spent on the life-cycle costs and the life-cycle analysis of the solution sets, as well as on the impact of future developments of primary energy factors, energy costs and technology efficiencies. Since details of the CoNZEBs work are presented in several additional papers, this document gives an overview of the different tasks and results that are available so far.

Bygninger er ansvarlige for op til 35% af det samlede energiforbrug i de lande som deltaer i IEA-projektet. EU-Parlamentet godkendte i april 2009 en anbefaling om, at medlemsstaterne skal sætte delmål for eksisterende bygninger for at fastsætte et minimum af bygninger til at være energineutrale i 2015 og 2020. Et par eksempler på renoveringsprojekter af erhvervsbygninger har vist, at det samlede primær-energiforbrug kan reduceres drastisk samtidig med at indeklimaet forbedres. De fleste bygningsejere er ikke klar over, at sådanne besparelser er mulige, og fastsætter derfor alt for konservative energimål. Bygninger som kun renoveres til middelmådigt niveau kan være tabte muligheder for de kommende årtier. Målene med dette projekt er at udvikle et solidt vidensgrundlag om, hvordan man energirenoverer erhvervsbygninger ned til niveau svarende til NZEB-standarder (Net-Zero Energy Buildings) på en bæredygtig og omkostningseffektiv måde og til at identificere de vigtigste marked og politiske spørgsmål samt marketing strategier for en sådan renoveringer.