AHP-Based Model for Energy-Sustainable Renovation of Building Envelopes: A Case Study

Abstract

The EU’s low carbon transition relies on the building sector as one of its main pillars, given that around 85% of the 160 million buildings within the EU are thermally inefficient. The energy-sustainable renovation of building envelopes calls for a comprehensive approach from initial design phases to construction, while balancing a series of factors, e.g., function and aesthetics, energy savings and environmental concerns, as well as cost-effectiveness. This article develops a model for the energy-sustainable renovation of building envelopes based on a multi-criteria analysis method—the AHP method. The model facilitates problem solving and development of alternative designs. The AHP method is used for evaluating and narrowing down design variants considering the given building conditions and the adopted set of criteria. The developed model is also applied in a real case study—the envelope energy renovation of a typical residential building built after the 1950s in many suburbs of Belgrade, Serbia. The model developed in the paper may be used by professionals to facilitate and make more efficient the design process of the energy-sustainable renovation of buildings and can inspire further studies on this topic, which has grown in urgency amid the current global energy crisis.