Energy efficient building are designed to minimize heating, cooling and lighting energy loads, so that attention is now paid on the energy consumption related to inhabitants (e.g. use of appliances) and life cycle issues: fabrication of materials, construction, maintenance, dismantling and waste treatment.In order to study these aspects, both in new construction and renovation projects, thermal simulation has been linked to life cycle assessment. Such a global environmental balance of a building allows for comparison of alternatives, constituting an eco-design tool. This methodology is presented, as well as validation elements from model inter-comparison. Application of this method is illustrated by a case study: two attached passive houses built in France. The results show the contribution of different life cycle stages in the environmental impact indicators (e.g. energy demand, global warming potential, water consumption, waste production…) as well as the influence of occupants on the performance.

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In modern constructions, several insulation configurations and technologies exist for residential buildings. Therefore, during renovation of these buildings, various investments can be considered. In this article, we consider building equipped with electric heaters. The contribution of this article is a method for evaluating the ability of each configuration to keep the inhabitants comfortable during load shifting periods. This question is of importance in the relationship, and then in the price setting, between the user (inhabitant of the house) and the energy provider who uses these load shifting periods to optimize his production on a regional or national scale. We proceed as follows: an optimization method is used to compute, in a dynamical context, the best heating strategy. The weather conditions and the comfort constraints define (through the solution of the dynamical optimization problem) the actual ability of the building to guarantee a satisfying comfort during load shifting periods independently on the regulation strategy. The conclusion is that for poorly insulated building (≈ 58% of the french stock) it is impossible to achieve load shifting superior to 20 minutes in winter time, even when using advanced regulation strategy of the heating system.