Energy efficiency in buildings - Sofia Energy Centre

Low Resource consumption buildings and constructions by use of LCA design and decision making

Project No FP7-ENV-2007-1-LoRE-LCA, 2008 – 2011, under programme

Project Concept:

Buildings and the built environment uses 50% of the materials taken from the Earth’s crust.
During their life cycles buildings comprise the largest energy consuming sector with the almost half of the primary energy used and generating about 40 % of all greenhouse gas emissions in Europe.
Waste produced from building materials are the source of 25 % of all waste generated.
The building sector also has a major economic impact (10 % of the GDP of the EU).
People spend almost 90 % of their time inside buildings.

In order to assess the integrated performance of buildings it is necessary to regard a building as a whole with required performance and functions to fulfil. The client sets the performance requirements for the building in terms of building performance and functionality, usually on the basis of technical performance. Consequently, during its life cycle, from raw material supply of building products to the final disposal of building components, a building has environmental and economic impacts as well as impacts on the health & comfort of the users. To get an overall picture on the integrated performance of a building, these impacts must be analyzed with the building as an object of the assessment of environmental performance, economic performance and health & comfort performance of building.

Precise evaluation tools are essential for the uptake of new or improved technologies for the built environment. Tools like LCA (Life cycle assessment) allow a quantification of the life-cycle environmental impact associated to the use of multiple, natural and non-renewable resources (water, primary raw materials, energy, land) and the generation of waste, showing the environmental benefit of appropriate technologies. Potential impacts on human health are also addressed.

LoRe-LCA aims to coordinate research activities regarding the application of LCA in the European construction sector. The technical work will focus on comparing and improving the functional units used for LCA for the whole building, improving the possibilities to compare assessment results for different alternatives during design stage, and for comparison of assessment results for different buildings.

Project objectives:

Analyse the potential and restrictions of the European building regulations framework to influence the resource consumption in construction, and to derive policy recommendations on energy, pollution prevention, landfill, waste, etc,
Collect and compare assessment methods of environmental performance used in different countries, with emphasis on LCA methods, to facilitate meaningful evaluation and communication to stakeholders including the public.
Support the standardisation activities of CEN TC350 and other initiatives by taking into account the different approaches and local specificities which exist and provide input to European harmonisation activities.
Encourage the use of Life Cycle Assessment methodologies by dissemination (training, workshops) to the relevant actors in the design and construction process.
Resolve methodological problems related to the scope and limits of the system under study by defining needs and objectives of different user groups, hereunder defining functional units and performance indicators, for instance for health and indoor climate, to ensure comparability.
Facilitate comparisons and what-if scenarios to improve decision making at the design stage and provide guidelines on the use of benchmarking data.
Establish best practices for use of LCA in design and decision, analysing case studies and looking at products and the building/construction as a whole.
Implement the use of open standards (IFC, IFD, BIM) to facilitate use of LCA tools as a natural step in the design and decision process, and to display for the client the environmental impact and use of resources for different alternatives.

Eco-Building International Club for advanced European sustainable energy technology dissemination in Europe and China

Project no. TREN/07/FP6EN/S07.72691/038496, under programme

Eco-Building Club: an innovative RTD&D results’ promotion approach

Different from common market promotion approach, where market operators are only simple message receivers, the project has proposed an innovative approach – Eco-Building Club; around this virtual round table, technology developers, providers and professional sector experts like building designers-constructors and estate managers will be main actors for market penetration of research and demonstration results. Through the co-ordination of EU project team, Club’s members are involved to:

determine what are more appropriated innovative RTD&D results for local market transferring;
demonstrate the feasibility of those research and demonstration results on real cases.

The project aims at:

Promoting and widespread disseminating European innovative Research and Technology Development and Demonstration results (RTD&D), as well as eco-sustainability criteria in the building sector, which include:

innovative energy efficient building materials not yet introduced into the building market or in their first market phase;
innovative applications of heating/cooling and power supply technologies, combined with the use of renewable energy sources, in building sector;
best European demonstration eco-building projects.

Involving market operators to take part directly in RTD&D results promoting and transferring actions through the creation of virtual Eco-Building Club. The actions consist of:

verifying building market interest for innovative RTD&D results’ transferring;
identifying RTD&D results according to local market needs for further market transferring;
facilitating research and demonstration results’ market penetration by implementing pre-feasibility studies on real cases.

Energy Saving through Promotion of Life Cycle Analysis in Building – ENSLIC BUILDING

The ENSLIC BUILDING Project is co-financed by the EIE Programme of EC, contract EIE/07/090/SI2.467609

The action seeks to achieve energy saving in the construction and operation of buildings by promoting the use of life cycle assessment techniques in the design for new buildings and for retrofit and refurbishment of existing buildings. It will encourage and facilitate the use of LCA amongst architects, consultants and local authorities.

The choice of high embodied-energy materials (Steel concrete, glass, aluminium, etc.) determines the initial energy consumption at construction but also conditions the energy consumption for the future use phase in the form of heating and cooling load. LCA is a tool for quantifying all the consumption stages throughout the life of the building. It comprises a comprehensive accounting of all material and energy inputs to the building throughout its whole life cycle and consolidates the results in the form of an environmental evaluation of the building. As well as accounting for energy consumption during operation of the building the impact from the production of that energy (grey energy) is also factored into the overall environmental impact.

LCA can also be supplemented with cost information in order to report in detail the economic costs incurred throughout the life cycle, known as Life Cycle Costing. Henceforth in this document the term LCA will also encompass LCC.

The project aims to draw on the existing information generated from previous research projects regarding: design for low energy consumption, integrated planning, environmental performance evaluation of buildings, design for sustainability and LCA techniques applied to buildings.

The output which will be compiled with the collaboration of key target groups will be a set of guidelines with a methodology which clarifies the various aspects of the LCA, e.g., purpose, benefits, requirements, flexibility and different techniques. This will be applied to real buildings by a number of collaborating target groups who have already expressed their interest.

Life Cycle Costing (LCC) in construction projects is becoming more and more of a priority in EU public procurement and building related projects. It may in the future become mandatory at an EU level for some public procurement. This action will serve to support further dissemination of LCC to industry by links with current initiatives.

Through this project tools for use in an integral planning process will be promoted to stakeholders who require a means to optimise environmental performance of buildings in a truly sustainable way. Regional centres of competence will be created in the area of environmental evaluation of buildings which work in accordance with the European technical committees’ vision for harmonisation in this area.

Objectives of the action:

Encourage the use of Life Cycle Assessment methodologies by dissemination of clear step by step methodology and guidelines developed during the project, together with results of at least 25 cases studies of practical applications.
While drawing on the state of the art involve stakeholders in the preparation of dissemination material, including guidelines for applying different methods of calculating environmental impacts in the design of new buildings and renovation projects.
With cooperation from local authorities, architects and other interested users apply the methodology to real building projects and disseminate the results on web page, at workshops to showcase the methodology.
Collect and compare methods of environmental performance used in different countries to facilitate meaningful evaluation and communication to stakeholders including the public.
Support the standardisation activities of CEN TC 350 and other initiatives by taking into account the different approaches and local specificities which exist and provide input to European harmonisation activities.
Resolve the methodological problems related to the scope and limits of the system under study by defining needs and objectives of different user groups.
Facilitate comparisons and what-if scenarios to improve decision making at the design stage and provide guidelines on the use of benchmarking data.

Coolregion

Сооlregion Project aims at dissemination of energy efficient RES based application for passive and active cooling of buildings. The project includes market assessment of cooling systems and air conditioners in 8 European countries with moderate climate, among which is Bulgaria, creation of European wide network of experts for exchange of information, presentation of successful casestudies for energy efficient cooling of different types of buildings in Germany, Netherlands and Austria.

Project activities:

Assessment of current status of cooling systems in participating countries;
Elaboration of handbooks for energy efficient cooling (for Bulgaria the handbook is about passive cooling and is prepared by Arch. Rossen Savov);
Seminars and workshops;
Case-studies for energy efficient active and passive cooling;

Companies and organisations from 7 European counties take part in the project: Germany, Austria, Netherlands, France, Bulgaria, Poland and Slovenia

Coolregion Project is cofounded by Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Commission

Improving the Social Dialogue for Energy Efficient Social Housing - ISEES

The ISEES Project is co-financed by the EIE Programme of EC, contract EIE/05/066/SI2.419634

Introduction:

The accessibility of appropriate and affordable housing is one of the pre-conditions to achieve social welfare. One aspect that determines the quality of housing is the energy demand. High heat energy consumption of households and public buildings in accession countries compared with EU average is caused by the low thermal quality of the existing building stock, obsolete equipment, problems with metering and billing of the consumed heat energy. Furthermore, the energy demand in buildings is being infl uenced by individual behaviour of the energy users and their insufficient knowledge to optimise their energy consumption.

Objectives:

The purpose of this project is to examine the infl uence of individual user behaviour on the energy demand in social housing. It will develop solutions to integrate energy effi ciency measures in social housing based on the development of social dialogue between users, housing associations, energy utilities (e.g. DH companies and energy supply companies) and municipalities, in order to:

identify the problems connected to energy use in social housing (from supply and demand side view);
protect the existing valuable infrastructure from obsolescence by developing options to improve efficient energy supply to these buildings;
provide the involved stakeholders with appropriate technical solutions and socio-economic tools to optimise the energy use in social housing;
assess the quality of services provided by utilities and district heating companies; provide concrete solutions to overcome barriers on the way to achieve energy effi cient social housing
provide concrete solutions to overcome barriers on the way to achieve energy effi cient social housing.

Target groups:

Occupants: tenants and owners of dwellings in buildings classifi ed as “social housing”, i.e. multi-family buildings
Decision-makers on the local level
Housing associations and their umbrella organisations
Local energy suppliers and utilities, in particular district heating companies
Architects, planners and equipment suppliers

Results:

A better understanding of the users’ behaviour, their motivation and their needs for energy services, based on field testing in selected model buildings and dwellings in 5 countries
Knowledge of the socio-economic rationality that lies behind individual decision-making processes
The outline of a model refurbishment process for 5 participating countries where the needs of the occupants are being respected and where tenants/owners are actively involved in the development and realisation of improvement measures
Specific recommendations and supporting manuals for tenants and owners of dwellings providing concrete advice for efficient energy use in buildings
A set of tools for decision-makers in the housing sector (housing associations, municipalities, planners) and energy utilities (e.g. district heating companies) to improve the quality of social housing on the one hand, and energy services on the other hand

Project partners:

KWI Consultants & Engineers, Austria
Inter-university Research Centre for Technology, Work and Culture (IFZ), Austria
ACE Group, Austria
SEC, Bulgaria
Cityplan spol. s.r.o., Czech Republic
Lithuanian Energy Institute (LEI), Lithuania
ECB, Slovak Republic
Energy for Sustainable Development Ltd. (ESD), United Kingdom

E-TOOL

“Energy-toolset for improving the energy performance of existing buildings”

The E-TOOL Project is co-financed by the EIE Programme of EC, contract EIE/04/239/S07.38676

Objective:

The overall objective of the E-TOOL is to develop a building energy rating tool and promote the implementation of the EU building performance directive with a focus on an operational and simple tool.

E-TOOL is developed as a common tool for European countries, accommodating regional climate conditions and regional practices of building construction.

The E-TOOL handbook is a guide for professionals, to identify energy savings in existing buildings, based on the actual energy consumption (operational rating) and to report the most cost effective saving measures to the building owner.

The E-TOOL handbook is a user’s manual for the E-TOOL calculation program.

The results of the E-TOOL rating comprises following items:

Guidelines for typical energy saving measures including costs estimations for different classifications of existing buildings.
Energy performance requirements after energy retrofitting, for different categories of buildings.
Bench-marking of energy consumption of different categories of existing domestic, commercial and public buildings.

Benchmarks:

The benchmarking of the energy consumption of buildings in based on a statistical evaluation of energy audits that have been performed with the present E-TOOL.

Partners:

Naturgas Midt- Nord (NGMN), Denmark (coordinator)CENER, Spain
Ober-Österreich Energiesparverband ESV, Austria
Thessaloniki Metropolitan Development Agency (TMDA), Greece
Sigma Consultants Ltd (SIGMA), Greece
Sofia Energy Centre (SEC), Bulgaria
Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZRMK), Slovenia
Deuca Energia S.L. (DEUCA), Spain

The EnERLIn Project is co-financed by the EIE Programme of EC, contract EIE/05/176/

In the context of the Kyoto Agreement, the European Community and individual Member States are looking for cost-effective measures to reduce CO2 emissions and combat climate change. To this end the European Commission carried out the European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) during which it identified, with stakeholders, cost-effective actions that contribute to CO2 emission reductions. The ECCP identified residential lighting as an important area. To achieve considerable savings in this sector, a coherent strategy is required to transform the lighting market. To ensure a sustainable growth and use of compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) we propose to develop valid promotional arguments and implement coherent promotional campaigns; to train end-users in order to achieve a self-sustained CFL use growth. Concerning energy savings from CFLs, by replacing only one additional GLS lamp by one CFL per household a gain of 22.5 TWh or 4 MTEP per annum corresponding to 1.2 Mtn of less CO2 per annum can be achieved.

The overall EnERLIn project objective is to substantially increase the efficiency of residential lighting in a number of Member States and Candidate Countries, through increased penetration of CFL’s in the residential sector. This objective should be achieved mainly by:

Introducing a CFL Quality Charter that guarantees for the end-user the CFL quality
Designing and implementing CFL promotional campaigns adapted to each country sensibility.

Low energy and low cost social housing for enlarged Europe

The LOCOSOC project is supported by the SAVE programme, contract No 4.1030/Z/02-119/2002

Despite the fact that new energy efficiency standards are being implemented in all EU member and EU associated countries, low energy social housing is still not being promoted in some of these countries due to many barriers. While large experiences and many practical applications can be found in the Netherlands and Austria, in most of associated countries this idea is still very new and it is really difficult to introduce it as a basic option in the process of taking decision on new housing and also rehabilitation of the existing one.

The primary objective of this action is thus to promote integration of RUE and RES in both new social housing co-financed from public budgets and also existing residential buildings in the state/municipal property in associated countries with the aim to develop low energy and low cost social housing system in these countries.

Main short-term goals of the action are as follows:

To increase an awareness of policy makers, local and regional authorities, and all the market actors in associated countries on the possibilities for RUE and RES implementation in the built environment;
To identify concrete approach for implementation of RUE and RES measures in the built environment in associated countries as pilot projects in the short-term horizon;
To transfer know-how in the field of low energy and low cost social housing from participating EU countries;
To provide the essential background materials to the national/regional/municipal authorities of the 5 associated countries under consideration helping them in setting their programmes for implementation of low energy and low cost social housing; and
To disseminate the idea of low energy and low cost social housing to other EU associated countries than those directly participating, in the series of similar actions in the future.

The main long-term goals of the action are as follows:

To create the policy framework for implementation of low energy and low cost social housing in associated countries as a vital alternative to the current energy intensive housing and thus contribute to solving both the housing and social problems for low income population in these countries;
To promote faster penetration of RUE and RES measures in the built environment in associated countries with the aim to reduce the demand for energy sources and contribute to solving key problems which the EU is facing: security of energy supply in enlarged Europe and reduction of the climate change risk.

Objective of the proposed action:

A huge number of citizens in the CEE countries are facing problems with housing. The low income and relatively high prices of real estates are forcing people to apply for social support package, which is operated from the state level. Social support allows applying for a soft loan packages for purchase of cheaper housing units – which are pre-designed for this special purpose. Success of this form of support building is secured only by construction of a new reasonable priced and sustainable house units or/and high quality rehabilitation of existing old residential buildings in state or municipal property.

The scope of this action is the parallel analyses of three different levels in the sector as follows: policy, general stage of the sector and individual market actor level. The goal is to provide a different perspective of the main groups of stakeholders (policy makers both on national and regional level and all the market actors) on the barriers of the implementation of qualitative criteria into social housing selection process and the ways to address those barriers.

The analyses are going to be done through the surveys in the first phase, technical solutions and assessment of the potentials for penetration of innovative technologies in the second phase, development of tools and policy measures and preparation of action plan for low energy low cost social housing in the third and fourth phases, preparation of fields for the implementation of pilot regional projects and specially tailored and developed series of promotion and dissemination activities within the phases five and six of the project.

Other projects for energy efficiency in buildings, are:

„Energy Intelligent Education for retrofitting of social houses“ EI–EDUCATION – for more information: educational courses

UP-STAIRS -UP-lifting Communities: Structuring collective Action for Sustainable local Transition and Identifying Regulatory Solutions for adopting frontier technologies and disruptive business models, for more information: municipal initiatives

Rhodoshop – a pilot programme to facilitate investment in energy efficiency by creation of One-Stop-Shop in Rhodope Region of Bulgaria, for more information: municipal initiatives