Improving the Energy Performance of Public Buildings Equipped with Individual Gas Boilers Due to Thermal Retrofitting

Anna Życzyńska,Václav Kočí,Robert Černý,Dariusz Majerek,Agnieszka Żelazna,Zbigniew Suchorab

doi:10.3390/en14061565

Abstract

The article assesses an impact of thermal retrofitting on an improvement of the energy quality of public buildings in terms of their heating. The analysis covered a group of 14 buildings, including schools, kindergartens or offices, while energy audits were carried out for 12 of them. The indications of individual gas meters were the source of actual data for the assessment of changes in energy consumption indexes in operating conditions. The analysis showed a clear improvement in the energy quality of buildings; however, the actual effects were much lower than forecasted. The average forecasted decrease in energy consumption was supposed to be 64.3%, but the measured data showed only 37.1%. The investigation confirmed that the most complex refurbishing provided the most satisfactory decrease in energy consumption (51.4% of real decrease in energy consumption), while objects with partial thermal refurbishing reached an efficiency of only 21.8%. It was stated that in operating conditions, special attention should be paid to the manner of energy use, since different indicators of energy consumption can be obtained with the same parameters of building’s balance cover. The results obtained can be further utilized in thermal-refurbishment implementation procedures. Follow-up investigations on the impact of selected parameters on energy consumption are planned.

Highlights

The construction sector is an important field of economy, responsible for approximately10% of Gross Domestic Product in European Union member states
In the M1 group, an average decrease in final energy consumption was achieved at the level of 35.2%, while in the M2 group it was 42.7%
With the usable area heated in each building known, the index of the annual final energy consumption for heating was determined, expressed in kWh·m−2 ·year−1 and denoted as FEH

Summary

Introduction

The construction sector is an important field of economy, responsible for approximately10% of Gross Domestic Product in European Union member states. Financial support programs implemented in Poland since 1998 [4] included and still include public buildings owned by local government units, which are used to carry out the tasks of these units [5,6]. This applies to buildings regardless of their location, i.e., in urban and rural areas. Local government units indicated educational facilities for thermal retrofitting investments, and others, such as offices, related to medical services or cultural activities of the city or commune [7,8]. Due to the lack of financial resources, many buildings remained in an unsatisfactory technical condition and were characterized by a low energy standard, which made it impossible to maintain the thermal comfort parameters required by the regulations in the rooms

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Conclusion