A simplified calculation process of buildings’ energy saving potential

Abstract

The real estate sector is responsible for 40 percent of the energy consumption and one third of the CO2 emissions in Europe. Moreover one third of the European Union’s buildings are in fact older than 50 years while only one percent is being renovated each year. The building stock is therefore of great importance for the European Union in order to achieve its climate targets not only for 2020 but also long term. The difficulty however is to decide where and how to realize energy savings in the most efficient and economical way – especially for property owners with a large and heterogeneous building stock. This paper provides a simplified analysis method to evaluate real estate portfolios and estimate their buildings’ saving potential. This method has been integrated into AiBATROS®[1] software and can help to prioritize measures increasing energy efficiency. Verification and validation of the process are demonstrated comparing results with another method’s energy calculations.

Review of Existing Tools for the Assessment of European Building Stock Energy Demand for Space Heating and Cooling

“…Today, there is a jagged horizon of tools that perform energy assessments [17] and some clarity is needed about their possibilities and limitations to orient the user and to identify future developments. The objective of this study is to provide an updated and comprehensive overview of the most commonly used tools, both open source and commercially licensed, for assessing the current energy demand of buildings in Europe for space heating and cooling purposes.…”