Review and comparison of methodologies and tools to perform energy efficiency projects in public buildings in MED areas

Abstract

The Energy Efficiency (EE) in buildings is one of the pillars for the climate change (CC) mitigation. There are several initiatives that are providing solutions to foster and accelerate the improvement of the EE in buildings. In particular, in the framework of the Interreg MED Programme, the Efficient Buildings Community (EB Community) has been created by the MEDNICE project (https://efficient-buildings.interreg-med.eu/) with the objective of sharing knowledge, practices and solutions for energy challenges in the MED area and creating synergies between similar initiatives. The EB Community collects the results of 10 Modular Projects (MPs) focused on the improvement of the EE in public buildings (PBs), in order to harmonize, systematize and capitalize their results and produce technical and policy recommendations to remove administrative, financial, legal or technological obstacles. The EB Community brings together local, regional and national stakeholders to exchanges methodologies, experiences and tools. The MPs cover the improvement of EE in PBs from different perspectives and stages: characterization of the PB stock, planning, tendering and procurement of services, implementation of the building process, monitoring and use of the buildings, training and awareness of the different stakeholders and financing solutions. Most of the MPs have proposed methodologies to carry out the different stages of the EE projects, from a public administration (PA) point of view and providing tools and indicators to make decisions in each stage of the project. The purpose of the present paper is to make a review of the methodologies and tools proposed by the MPs. The study aims at establishing a common procedure to perform EE projects in PBs with especial focus on MED areas; selecting common and relevant KPIs to be used during the whole value-chain of a project (energy, sustainability, cost and financial, environmental comfort, among others); evaluating the main target group of each tool and the stage of the process that is addressed; and identifying the main gaps of the methodologies and tools, as well as their usefulness to overcome the main barriers identified within the EE projects.