Intelligent Energy Europe Project "EPISCOPE"

Energy Performance Indicator Tracking Schemes
for the Continuous Optimisation of Refurbishment Processes
in European Housing Stocks

Project Overview - PDF Download: EPISCOPE-ProjectInformation.pdf

Abstract

The strategic objective of the EPISCOPE project is to make the energy refurbishment processes in the European housing sector more transparent and effective with the aim to ensure that the climate protection targets will actually be attained and that corrective or enhancement actions can be taken in due time, if necessary. Due to the fact that such actions are required on national, regional and local level the project approach is to implement pilot actions on these different scales and to align and combine them by means of a common methodology.

The conceptual framework will be based on national residential building typologies developed during the IEE project TABULA. These classification schemes for national building stocks will be extended to further countries. An upgrade of the WebTool will also reflect the national interpretations of "Nearly-Zero Energy Buildings" (NZEB). The resulting methodology is the basis for the intended assessment and comparison of different refurbishment strategies and impacts.

The main project activity will be to track the energy refurbishment progress of certain housing stock entireties. Some of these typology based "pilot actions" will focus on distinct housing portfolios on local level, others on entire regional or national housing stocks. The implementation rate of different refurbishment measures will be determined and compared with those activities which are necessary to attain the relevant climate protection targets. In addition, the actual measured consumption after refurbishment will be compared to the expected values with the aim to verify the targeted savings.

The monitoring procedure and the concerted set of energy performance indicators developed during the project will enable key actors and stakeholders on different scales to ensure a high quality of energy refurbishments, the compliance with regulations, to track and steer the refurbishment processes in a cost-efficient way and to evaluate the actually achieved energy savings.

Major outputs & expected results

The major outputs of the project will be:

An extension of the national residential building typologies developed during the TABULA project to further countries, including a classification scheme, showcase example buildings and building stock and supply system statistics.
Pilot actions in a number of countries on local, regional or national level identifying and quantifying by typological criteria:

a) refurbishment progress achieved in the past and current rates of refurbishments by measure type;

b) actual compliance with renovation requirements and actual uptake of recommendations;

c) conditions for insulation measures (identification of easy- and hard-to-treat homes);

d) conditions for installation of renewable energy supply (solar systems, biomass, heat pumps, …);

e) consumption benchmarks and assigned energy performance indicators.

Scenario calculations for the considered housing stocks / portfolios, identifying

a) the current refurbishment trends for distinct subsets of the stock;

b) the actually achieved energy savings and CO2 reductions of early renovations;

c) building/system combinations which comply with the long-term energy performance targets (e.g. NZEB standard);

d) the necessary renovation rates to attain the targets.

In case of non-compliance identification of fields where corrective actions are necessary to meet the targets with respect to refurbishment rates and actual consumption – involvement of key actors and stakeholders in the discussion of adequate measures.
A concerted set of energy performance indicators reflecting the energy refurbishment state of housing stock subgroups on different scales and enabling a comparison of trends and scenarios between different countries.
Recommendations how a regular monitoring can be achieved by introducing the necessary energy performance indicators in energy certificate databases, representative surveys, census, heating or energy bills, strategic asset development, energy management etc.

Specific objectives (during the action):

Create and update residential building typologies on regional or national level consisting of a classification scheme, a set of example buildings representing the stock, a set of refurbishment measures on the levels "standard", "advanced" and "NZEB" and showcase calculations of the energy savings.
Determine and evaluate information about the energy performance and the refurbishment state of distinct housing portfolios (local level) and for entire housing stocks (regional / national level). Track the changes over the past years and try to determine the current rates of refurbishment.
Determine and evaluate information about the actual energy consumption of the considered housing stocks distinguishing between the refurbishment levels of the buildings. Define calibration functions for the adaptation of the calculated energy use to the typical level of measured consumption and use them for identifying refurbished buildings where the measured consumption exceeds significantly the expected values.
Set up scenario calculations on the basis of the gathered information in order to determine the mid- and long-term savings by assuming trend and ambitious refurbishment activities. Compare the obtained energy savings and carbon dioxide emission reductions with the relevant targets.
Involve key actors and stakeholders in the question how to reach the targets regarding refurbishment activity and actual energy consumption after refurbishment. Trigger off improved EPI collection and further bottom-up monitoring activities on different scales.

Strategic objectives (for the longer term):

The overall strategic objective is to make the energy refurbishment processes in the European housing sector transparent and effective. This will help to ensure that the climate protection targets will actually be attained and that corrective or enhancement actions can be taken in due time, if necessary.
The required transparency shall be obtained by installing bottom up monitoring procedures in each European country in different fields: in energy certificate databases, representative surveys, regional or national census, heating or energy bills, strategic asset development, energy management.
The concerted set of energy performance indicators developed during the project will enable key actors and stakeholders on different levels to ensure a high quality of energy refurbishments, the compliance with regulations, to track and steer the refurbishment processes in a cost-efficient way and to evaluate the actually achieved energy savings.

EPISCOPE Project Partners

1	IWU	Institute for Housing and Environment	Germany
2	BPIE	Buildings Performance Institute Europe	Belgium
3	ZRMK	Building and Civil Engineering Institute ZRMK	Slovenia
4	SBi	Danish Building Research Institute, Aalborg University	Denmark
5	AEA	Austrian Energy Agency	Austria
6	BRE	Building Research Establishment Ltd	United Kingdom
7	NOA	National Observatory of Athens	Greece
8	VITO	Flemish Institute for Technological Research	Belgium
9	POLITO	Politecnico di Torino - Department of Energy	Italy
10	STU-K	STU-K	Czech Republic
11	Energy Action	Energy Action Limited	Ireland
12	BME	Budapest University of Technology and Economics	Hungary
13	IVE	Valencian Institute of Building	Spain
14	CUT	Cyprus University of Technology	Cyprus
15	DUT	Delft University of Technology	Netherlands
16	Pouget	Pouget Consultants	France
17	NTNU	Norwegian University of Science and Technology	Norway