Abstract

The paper presents the findings on end-users’ experiences and expectations about living in multi-family Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEBs). The survey in four European countries (Slovenia, Italy, Denmark and Germany) was part of EU Horizon 2020 project CoNZEBs (2017-2019) and addressed end-users living or thinking about living in multi-family NZEBs. Targeted end-users were living (as tenants or owners) in either ordinary buildings or in high performance buildings such as NZEBs (mandatory after 2020 according to Directive 2010/31/EU). In the survey, the following topics were addressed: the level of end-user’s understanding of the NZEB concept, the source and quality of information on NZEB from the end-users’ perspective, the importance of various apartment features for the end-users, perception of NZEB characterizing technologies, and decision triggers for living in NZEB. Concerns, doubts and eventual fears about living in NZEBs were studied to enable a tailored information for future end-users, to increase the demand for NZEB and beyond NZEB buildings and to improve their acceptability. To facilitate the living in NZEBs a guide for end-users was developed, explaining the “Myths” about NZEBs as well as presenting testimonials of current NZEB users in four participating countries.

Highlights

  • According to Directive 2010/31/EU [1] (EPBD recast) after 2020 all new buildings will have to comply with national requirements for nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB)

  • The research presented in this paper focused on the identification of end users’ attitude to living in NZEBs and the comparison of the findings from different countries

  • The goal of the questionnaire was to learn about the opinion of end-users in existing and future multi-family NZEBs regarding their expectations and experiences with living in NZEBs, the decision triggers to move into NZEB, their potential doubts and fears about living in high performance buildings, technologies used in their buildings, the quality of life in such buildings, the eventual impact of NZEBs on the real-estate value

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Summary

Introduction

According to Directive 2010/31/EU [1] (EPBD recast) after 2020 all new buildings will have to comply with national requirements for nearly zero energy buildings (NZEB) (public buildings after 2018). MSs prepared action plans for construction of early NZEBs before the full implementation of EC requirement on NZEBs after 2020/2018. Several technical concepts for construction of highly energy efficient buildings targeting the anticipated NZEBs performance levels were tested in practice [2]. According to the CoNZEBs project [3] NZEB like multi-family buildings (MFBs) built in various countries (German, Italy, Denmark and Slovenia) slightly differ in building’s energy efficiency, in implemented technologies, in the share of RES used and above all in construction costs.

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