Abstract
Since its introduction in 2010, the nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) concept has known a large diffusion in European countries. Albania, an aspiring candidate country to join the European Union EU, is paving the way towards its introduction by transposing EU directives in the fields of energy efficiency into the national legislation. Most of the national building stock includes buildings with low thermal and energy performance but with high refurbishment potential, too. The country can become an important contributor in the EU decarbonization strategy due to the high percentage of electricity produced by hydropower stations, making it one of the least carbon-intensity countries in the electricity production point of view. The article focuses on the evaluation of the energy performance of an existing school located in Tirana and the potentialities to reach the nZEB target, analysing both the suitable technological solutions and the energy market situation. The Primary Energy Factors PEF for the local electricity market are estimated referring to statistical data and in comparison, with neighbouring countries, Italy and Greece, in order to investigate the potential of the achievement of the nZEB target in Albania.
Highlights
The paper presents the outcomes of the bilateral research† between ITC-CNR (Italy) and Polis University (Albania), focused on the identification of retrofit solutions leading to a best practice level of nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) in Albania, relying on local and affordable technical solutions
This study explored the effectiveness of the refurbishment in a nZEB perspective in Albania, considering the local energy market, where electricity is almost produced by hydropower, a renewable energy source
The analysis was carried on the basis of the results of the energy simulation of the building using Building Energy Modeling (BEM) software, in order to quantify the potential of reaching the nZEB target in Albania, under the local energy market and comparing with other neighbouring countries, Italy and Greece
Summary
The paper presents the outcomes of the bilateral research† between ITC-CNR (Italy) and Polis University (Albania), focused on the identification of retrofit solutions leading to a best practice level of nZEB in Albania, relying on local and affordable technical solutions. The potential savings in terms of energy consumption in the sector are huge, even though a large part of the building stock has been built when attention towards energy efficiency was very limited or absent. This goal is possible by introducing and implementing the ZeroEnergy Building (ZEB) concept, especially in the retrofit of public buildings [3]. All EU countries have defined in their national legislations the energy requirements for nZEBs, different degrees of implementation are observed among them [5].
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