Energy Performance Certificate For Buildings Research Articles

Land management criteria for green building certification systems in Turkey.

The issue of energy holds significant implications for nations heavily reliant on it, such as Turkey. In recent times, legislative measures, including the Energy Efficiency Law and the Energy Performance Regulation of Buildings, have been enacted in Turkey. Despite the implementation of the Energy Performance Certificate for buildings, the absence of a national green building certification system remains conspicuous. To address this gap, an examination of globally recognized certification systems and relevant components concerning land management, pertinent to Turkey's context, was undertaken. This involved a comprehensive literature review to establish the foundation for survey inquiries. Subsequently, interviews were conducted with subject matter experts in Turkey to glean valuable insights and perspectives. Utilizing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology, the responses from these experts were collated and analyzed to delineate the criteria and sub-criteria germane to land management. This study delves into the discourse surrounding the establishment of a green building certification system within Turkey, specifically within the domain of land management, a sector of paramount importance, particularly within the purview of survey engineering. Through a structured survey, the criteria pertinent to land management were identified and subjected to rigorous analysis. Furthermore, the sub-criteria within the land management category were delineated, and their respective weights were computed, thereby providing a comprehensive framework for the envisioned green building certification system in Turkey.

A Novel Dynamic Approach to Cost-Optimal Energy Performance Calculations of a Solar Hot Water System in an nZEB Multi-Apartment Building

This paper presents the methodology for conducting a cost-optimal energy performance calculation of a solar hot water system, used for space heating and domestic hot water needs. The calculation is based on dynamic hourly methods, according to the new Energy Performance of Buildings’ (EPB) set of standards EN 15316:2017, and a revision of the standard EN 15316-5:2017 from the year 2021, dealing with storage-tank water temperature calculations. The paper provides proposals for modifications to these newly introduced standards, in order to overcome the observed ambiguities and shortcomings. The calculation of annual energy performance of a building was performed on an hourly basis over a year for the reference of an nZEB multi-apartment building, for a climate area of the city of Zagreb, taking into account water temperature change in the layers of the storage tank connected to solar collectors and hot water boilers. The cost-optimal solution was then determined by varying individual parameters of the building technical system. The influence of these parameters on the energy efficiency of the building was analyzed in detail. Furthermore, the results were compared against those obtained by the Croatian calculation algorithm based on the previous set of EPB standards, EN 15316:2008, currently used EU-wide for the energy performance certification of buildings. The results indicated that the calculation methods of the present algorithm underestimated the consumption of building primary energy by 12%. The energy delivered by solar collectors was underestimated by 18%.

Energy Performance Certificate for buildings as a strategy for the energy transition: Stakeholder insights on shortcomings

Improving building performance is key to tackling the challenges of climate change, considering that buildings account for 40% of the global energy consumption. The urgent need for energy efficiency improvement of buildings calls for the implementation of suitable policy instruments, including performance assessments. Currently, the performance of buildings is officially assessed by Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) schemes. However, EPCs certify the design more than the building, relying on simulations and assumptions rather than on the buildings’ actual demand for energy which is partly determined by occupant behaviour, execution of the work and malfunctioning of the equipment. This work investigates how the governance of the performance certification scheme could be improved with the objective of a more robust EPC scheme. Based on a qualitative study through interviews with energy experts the current EPC system in Switzerland is characterized, allowing to understand important limitations. The insights help to shape a list of recommendations for further development of the EPC scheme. This research is relevant because the failure to correctly assess building performance leads to excess carbon emissions and higher energy costs, undermining the attainability of the energy policy targets.

Toward Energy Savings in Campus Buildings under a Life Cycle Thinking Approach

Recent studies have identified that buildings all over the world are great contributors to energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The relationship between the building industry and environmental pollution is continuously discussed. The building industry includes many phases: extraction of raw materials, manufacturing, construction, use, and demolition. Each phase consumes a large amount of energy, and subsequent emissions are released. The life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) is a simplified version of the life cycle assessment (LCA) that focuses only on the evaluation of energy inputs for different phases of the life cycle. Operational energy is the energy required for day-to-day operation processes of buildings, such as heating, cooling and ventilation systems, lighting, as well as appliances. This use phase accounts for the largest portion of energy consumption of the life cycle of conventional buildings. In addition, energy performance certification of buildings is an obligation under current European legislation, which promotes efficient energy use, so it is necessary to ensure that the energy performance of the building is upgraded to meet minimum requirements. For this purpose, this work proposes the consideration of the energy impacts and material resources used in the operation phase of a building to calculate the contribution of these energy impacts as new variables for the energy performance certification. The application of this new approach to the evaluation of university buildings has been selected as a case study. From a methodological point of view, the approach relied on the energy consumption records obtained from energy and materials audit exercises with the aid of LCA databases. Taking into practice the proposed methodology, the primary energy impact and the related emissions were assessed to simplify the decision-making process for the energy certification of buildings. From the results obtained, it was concluded that the consumption of water and other consumable items (paper) are important from energy and environmental perspectives.

Trends of Energy Performance Certification of Buildings in Azerbaijan

Energy consumption by construction sector is estimated by multi- disciplinary energy auditing and results are represented in an energy performance building certificate. The building certification, which is a world trend today, is applied successfully for many buildings inAzerbaijantoo. The purpose of this paper to study the current methodology of energy building certification in terms of the technological aspects of energy auditing. Many documents of the European Union directives and Russian building codes and regulations in the field of ecology and energy saving in construction sector have been revised for implementing them as base for national energy performance certification system AZERI GREEN ZOOM. The assessment categories and main requirements have been considered. The results of this overview have shown the trends and problems in this field. There are given examples of certified buildings.

Comparative study by an expert panel of documents recognized for energy efficiency certification of buildings in Spain

Approval of the European Directive 2002/91/EU was followed by its reformulation in Directive 2010/31/EU, with reference to the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD). The partial transposition of this norm in Spain took place through Royal Decree 235/2013, which describes the Basic Procedure for the Energy Performance Certification of Buildings and acknowledges four different documents to certify the energy simulation of buildings: (i) CALENER VYP as the general method, and (ii) CE3, CEX and CERMA, as simplified methods. This study analyzes and compares these documents through the qualified opinions of a panel of 105 multidisciplinary professionals of the sector that determined the strengths and weaknesses. To this end a survey was drawn up, including aspects as diverse as: the background and professional characteristics of the experts, the types of residences studied, the characteristics of the documents, the means of processing documents, and the final results in terms of reports and energy certifications. Data analysis shows that most technicians prefer using programs with a simple interface—namely, the CEX. Although all the documents recognized are equally valid for energy certification, when certain types of residence are involved, there may be as much as a 26% difference in the determination of CO2 emissions. This translates into a higher or lower level in the final energy certification obtained for a building.

Primary energy consumption of the dwelling with solar hot water system and biomass boiler

This paper presents a new methodology, based on the energy performance of buildings Directive related European norms. It is developed to overcome ambiguities and incompleteness of these standards in determining the delivered and primary energy. The available procedures from the present “Algorithm for determining the energy demands and efficiency of technical systems in buildings”, normally used for energy performance certification of buildings, also allow detailed analyzes of the influence of particular system components on the overall system energy efficiency. The calculation example is given for a Croatian reference dwelling, equipped with a solar hot water system, backed up with a biomass boiler for space heating and domestic hot water purposes as a part of the dwelling energy performance certification. Calculations were performed for two cases corresponding to different levels of the dwelling thermal insulation with an appropriate heating system capacity, in order to investigate the influence of the building heat losses on the system design and energy consumption. The results are compared against those obtained for the conventional system with a gas boiler in terms of the primary energy consumption as well as of investment and operating costs. These results indicate great reduction in both delivered and primary energy consumption when a solar system with biomass boiler is used instead of the conventional one. Higher savings are obtained in the case of the dwelling with higher energy need for space heating. Such dwellings also have a shorter payback period than the ones with better thermal insulation.

Primary energy use for heating in the Swedish building sector—Current trends and proposed target

One goal of the Swedish energy policy is to reduce the amount of electricity used for heating in the building sector. This means to reduce the primary energy used for heating which in this paper is analyzed in the context of various heating technologies and CO 2 emissions. The analysis is applied to a region in Sweden (southern Sweden) for which detailed information on the energy infrastructure (the capital stock of the buildings and heating systems together with geographical variations in heat intensity) is available from a previous work [Johansson, P., Nylander, A., Johnsson, F., 2005. Electricity dependency and CO 2 emissions from heating in the Swedish building sector—current trends in conflict with governmental policy? Energy policy] and which is large enough to be assumed representative for Sweden as a whole. The detailed mapping of the energy infrastructure allows a good estimate on the rate at which the energy system can be expected to be replaced with respect to economical lifetime of the capital stock (the year 2025 in this case). Two scenarios are investigated; a target scenario for which energy savings are employed (e.g. improving climate shell in buildings) and oil and most of the electricity used for heating purposes are phased out and a second for which the current trend in the heating market continues. In the target scenario it is shown that although only applying commercially competitive heating technologies, it is possible to achieve a 47% reduction in primary energy use for heating with a 34% decrease in heat demand together with significant reduction in CO 2 emissions. However, the scenario which continues the current trends on the heating market instead yields an increase (of about 10%) in primary energy use (reduction in conversion efficiency) of the heating system of the region over the period studied, in spite of a slight decrease in heat demand (9%, mainly due to energy efficiency measures) as well as in CO 2 emissions. In light of the recently proposed introduction of energy performance certification of buildings in Sweden (and in EU), it can be concluded that such a certification system must take into account the primary energy use and local conditions. A politically acceptable way to do so would be to propose municipalities to develop “best strategies” on development of the heating market for various house types and districts within the municipality which can then be included as recommendations in the energy performance certification of the buildings.