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[Display omitted] • nZEBs in Eastern Europe lack carbon neutrality metrics and targets. • Performance requirements for nZEBs in Eastern Europe are presented. • Eastern Europe needs strategy and local governance for nZEB market penetration. • EPCs require major reform, and effective monitoring of nZEB performance is needed. • The cost-optimality calculation method must be adopted to ensure cost-effective market uptake. The European Unions' ambition for the construction sector is to be carbon neutral by 2030 for new construction. Since 2021, all new buildings in the EU should have been constructed as nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB). However, Eastern European countries struggle to implement the 2018 Energy Performance of Building Directive recast requirements. Next to the economic challenges, equally essential factors hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high-performance buildings sourced primarily from renewable energy sources. Therefore, this study provides a cross-study to identify the barriers to nZEB implementation in ten Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The study was conducted between 2019 and 2021 and provides an overview of prospects for nZEB in Eastern Europe. The study examines the challenges of nZEB plans faced in those countries and provides constructive recommendations. The regulations and definitions regarding nZEB energy performance, cooling and heating energy demand, thermal comfort, onsite renewables, and construction quality were analyzed. Results show that most Eastern European countries are unprepared to comply with the EPBD guidelines and cost-optimality approach. The paper ranks each country and recommends specific measures to refine the nZEB definitions. The paper provides a thorough comparative assessment and benchmarking of select EU geography that can help shift the identified gaps into opportunities for the future development of climate-neutral high-performance buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In this paper we present an algorithm for calculating the reference temperature in the rooms of a building. The algorithm works in such a way as to properly reduce the reference temperature in the rooms when they are not occupied, and at the correct start time, before the rooms are occupied, recover the reference temperature back to the defined value. The algorithm is tested in six rooms of a simulated hotel building using the well-known TRNSYS software. Different occupancy regimes are considered in the various rooms, and simulations are performed for a period of 1 year using the weather data of the town of Portorož, Slovenia. The results obtained with the proposed algorithm are compared to the results achieved with a constant reference temperature setting. The comparison is made with regard to the energy consumed for the heating and cooling of the rooms, and taking account of the deviations from the allowed temperature rise time. In the rooms where the occupancy is not known in advance similar results can be obtained with the proposed algorithm as with the constant reference setting. However, in the rooms where the occupancy is known in advance, desired level of guest comfort can be preserved with the proposed algorithm with an approximately 10% lower energy consumption for the heating and cooling of the rooms than with the constant reference recovery time setting. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper reports on an analytical investigation into the energy saving potential associated with modified comfort limits in transitional spaces in buildings. Such spaces may not require the same high level and close environmental control of more fully occupied spaces and thus a wider variation in conditions and interpretation of thermal comfort may be permitted. Estimations are made of energy saving potential based upon typical floor area proportions utilised for transition spaces of various types in office/commercial buildings. The data are combined with suggested norms for comfort expectation that have wider temperature limits than for normally occupied office zones. The method has been applied to a series of building types situated in the climate of the East Pennines area of the UK using a thermal analysis tool. The results show that useful energy savings (particularly for heating) are possible by allowing for a modest (and realistic) relaxation of prescribed comfort standards in transition spaces. Further work is now required to confirm the limits and assess energy saving in practice. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In summer natural ventilation is the most effective passive cooling system of the Mediterranean area. The correct exposure of the buildings and of the urban morphology to prevailing winds allows reducing the cooling loads also in non-bioclimatic buildings, without any cost. This paper points out the cooling capacity and the possibilities of energy saving offered by a correct natural ventilation by means of the simulation of a non-bioclimatic building, that is, a building having common characteristics as for construction materials and technologies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]