Summary report

Reference buildings for EP calculation studies

The choice of the building geometry is often one of the first determinations during comparison studies of energy performance levels over Europe, but also during and other European calclation studies. With this in mind one of the subtasks of ASIEPI has been to gather a set of reference buildings.

The aim of the set of reference buildings is to give an idea of typical houses build in Europe. When we make calculations on European level, we often extrapolate the results of one house, without the realization that houses in Finland might look totally different from houses in Spain. Of course it is not possible to determine one typical house for a whole country. But with this report a handle is given for information on the variety of typical houses in Europe.

Download the document from www.buildup.eu.

Comparing Energy Performance Requirements over Europe: Tool and Method

One of the challenging tasks of the ASIEPI project was to develop a method to compare the energy performance requirement levels of the countries of Europe. We found that all alternatives we considered have their advantages and disadvantages. And although the method we finally developed is far from perfect, it is designed to suite expected future developments, for instance within CEN and ISO, which will make the comparison method more suitable in the future. This report describes the ASIEPI comparison method and accompanying tool.

Download the document from www.buildup.eu.

ASIEPI Excel Tool

The comparison method is accompanied by the ASIEPI Excel Tool. The tool is based on EPA-NR and is a first step in harmonising the total primary energy calculations of the houses used in the comparison approach.

Download the ASIEPI Excel Tool from www.buildup.eu.

Comparing Energy Performance Requirements over Europe: Cross section overview

During this development of the comparison method several pilot studies were performed. These give a global impression of the severity of the energy performance requirement levels for dwellings of the participating countries. This report gives an overview of the results of the pilot studies. Although one of the main conclusions of the development of the comparison method was that a robust comparison of energy performance requirement levels at this moment is not possible, the results give a first impression of a cross section overview of EP requirement levels in Europe.

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3 Sub reports on comparison of components by experts

The ASIEPI method uses various assumptions to make the cases used in the method comparable among different countries, for instance the amount and type of systems were chosen to be as small and simple as possible. From a previous study it was known that trying to make the cases similar on a very detailed level would result in only assumed accuracy. Therefore the cases were only described on a more global level. This black box approach doesn’t mean however that the cases are similar within this black box.

The most relevant aspects within this black box have been examined to see whether these aspects are comparable or how they could be taken into account in a comparison study.

The following items were studied and are addressed in the sub reports:

1. The efficiency of the heating and domestic hot water system
2. Thermal bridges
3. Infiltration
4. The power of the fan

Download the document on heating, domestic hot water systems and fans from www.buildup.eu.

Download the document on thermal bridges from www.buildup.eu.

Download the document on infiltration from www.buildup.eu.

In addition to the report on infiltration, an overview of the calculation methods for the overall ventilation heat transfer coefficient in 8 European countries has been made. This includes the manner in which the airtightness of the envelope is taken into account. For most countries also some background information is given. This analytical overview is complementary to the quantitative comparisons included in the infiltration report and a conference paper.

Sub reports on climate severity

As part of the development of the comparison method first development steps have been taken to incorporate a climate severity index in the method. Information on the role of the climate severity index in the comparison method can be found in the summary report and the report on tool and method. More information about the climate severity index can be found in an additional report and power point presentation.

Download the report from www.buildup.eu. 

Download the power point from www.buildup.eu. 

Brainstorming and discussion document "Tightening the EPB-requirements: turning the potential into reality"

The work programme of ASIEPI, as established in 2006, set as objective to investigate possible methods to compare the energy performance requirements among different countries. In the mean time, the recast of the EPBD has been developed. Observing that comparing the requirements between countries is not only extremely difficult at the present time, but also not the most relevant approach (given the different boundary conditions in different countries, e.g. for costs of labour and materials), the recast now calls for an internal economic analysis within each country in order to establish requirements that are cost-optimum or better. This new approach was outside the contractual scope of the ASIEPI project, and not many resources could be allocated to study the issues related to this different way of doing. Still, based on the general familiarity of the project partners with EPB-regulations, some elementary considerations on this complementary topic have been put onto paper in the framework of the project. This brainstorming and discussion paper may serve as an inventory of some of the many challenges in order to achieve a sustained reduction of the energy consumption in reality.

Download the document from www.buildup.eu.

Last update: 25-05-2010