5 - Innovative systems

The EPBD as support for market uptake for innovative systems

To the question 'which standards or regulations could be barriers for new hybrid ventilation systems?', the industries of the European RESHYVENT project (2002-2004) immediately replied: 'the coming EPBD related regulations, if they do not consider innovative systems !'.


First of all, it is important to have in mind what "innovative systems" means in the specific context of Energy Performance of Buildings (EPB) regulations.

In the context of EPB regulations, innovative systems/technologies are defined as:

  • systems/technologies that, in most cases, improve the building’s energy performance and,
  • whose performance cannot be assessed by the standard EPB calculation procedure in a particular country.

The main objectives of ASIEPI were to create/increase awareness of the Member States regarding the potential problems to assess innovative systems (in legal and technical terms) and to give them suggestions about attractive approaches, primarily based on experiences in other MS.

It is clear that both EPBD related regulations on the one hand and innovative systems or technologies on the other hand may strongly improve the energy performance of buildings. Experience in e.g. France, Netherlands, Norway and Sweden has shown that a proper handling of innovations in the national EPB regulation often leads to a market transformation (e.g. humidity controlled ventilation is widely spread in France, with more than 1.5 Million dwellings equipped, whereas the in other EU countries, the market is marginal).
Therefore, ASIEPI aimed to analyse the impact of EPB regulations on the innovative technologies, to emphasise the consequences of this issue, to raise awareness of policy makers and industries, and to give guidance to the Member States on how the situation could be improved.

 

This first step was to make a "State-Of-The-Art analysis" of the current situation in the different Member States participating in the project. The following points have been analysed:

  • What is the legal framework in each MS (if any)?
  • What kind of systems are considered as innovative (according the above definition) in each MS?
  • Who is allowed to make the performance assessment? Are there assessment and specific quality control schemes? Is there a role for organisations involved in technical approval systems? What problems concerning performance assessment are found in practice?  Can solutions be found in other countries? To what extent can results obtained in one country be relevant for other countries?
  • Financial aspects, e.g. who is paying the study?
  • How does it work in practice (good and bad experiences from industry)? How many studies have been carried out so far?  What are the conditions for a successful implementation?  Why do some barriers occur in one country and not in another, what lessons can MS learn from each other?
  • What is the impact of the procedure on the market for innovative systems?

This "State-of-the-art" analysis is available here.

 

In a second step, pro’s and con’s for the various approaches, have been identified, and guidelines have been made available allowing Member States to accelerate the realisation of a qualitative environment for the assessment of innovative systems in EPBD context. (These guidelines covers legal and technical issues. However, as SAVE is not a framework for technical projects, ASIEPI did not intend to develop new methodologies to assess the performance of innovative systems.)

The  pro’s and con’s for the various approaches and the guidelines are available here.

 

Last update: 26-03-2010.