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Decisions taken during the early design of facade retrofits have a major influence on the final performance of buildings. However, current procurement procedures do not promote the evaluation of how facade systems design affects the overall building performance, which includes energy efficiency, comfort, cost and their complex interactions. Tenders are commonly based on single values which describe single properties of façade components like thermal transmittances and solar gain factors and do not consider interrelation between these components, the dynamic behavior of buildings and specific local climate. This paper presents a concept to drive public procurement processes based on overall building performance criteria. The methodology is operationalized by a user-friendly tool (FIT) predicting the overall performance according to façade design variations. These performance criteria are integrated into tenders by calculating a total score for every design proposal. This approach sensitizes designers and contracting authorities to consider the overall performance of a façade from the very early design and helps in making informed design decisions. An application in a simulated case study of a public school building shows its potential to guide public procurement processes and that further research and validation in actual procurement procedures is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a study which examined building and plant technologies oriented to energy saving by improving indoor comfort and reducing pollution emission. Characteristics of opaque and transparent vertical enclosure systems; Description of the systems' hardware and managing software; Details on the experimentation on the systems.

The increasing global energy demand, the foreseen reduction of available fossil fuels and the increasing evidence off global warming during the last decades have generated a high interest in renewable energy sources. However, renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar power, have an intrinsic variability that can seriously affect the stability of the energy system if they account for a high percentage of the total generation. The Energy Flexibility of buildings is commonly suggested as part of the solution to alleviate some of the upcoming challenges in the future demand-respond energy systems (electrical, district heating and gas grids). Buildings can supply flexibility services in different ways, e.g. utilization of thermal mass, adjustability of HVAC system use (e.g. heating/cooling/ventilation), charging of electric vehicles, and shifting of plug-loads. However, there is currently no overview or insight into how much Energy Flexibility different building may be able to offer to the future energy systems in the sense of avoiding excess energy production, increase the stability of the energy networks, minimize congestion problems, enhance the efficiency and cost effectiveness of the future energy networks. Therefore, there is a need for increasing knowledge on and demonstration of the Energy Flexibility buildings can provide to energy networks. At the same time, there is a need for identifying critical aspects and possible solutions to manage this Energy Flexibility, while maintaining the comfort of the occupants and minimizing the use of non-renewable energy. In this context, the IEA (International Energy Agency) EBC (Energy in Buildings and Communities program) Annex 67: “Energy Flexible Buildings” was started in 2015. The article presents the background and the work plan of IEA EBC Annex 67 as well as already obtained results. Annex 67 is a corporation between participants from 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Levelized cost method to develop building stock retrofit scenarios. • Ranking of retrofits according to levelized cost of saved energy. • Energy efficiency cost curve minimizing cost per energy saved. • Calibrated baseline from metered energy consumption. • Demonstration of the method on a housing stock in northern Italy. Policy makers need scientific support to set ambitious yet realistic environmental targets for the transition to energy efficient buildings and to develop cost-effective policies to meet these targets, but comprehensive, manageable procedures to this aim are still lacking. Our proposed method ranges from baseline creation to transition scenarios depending on annual retrofit budget and specifies the buildings to renovate according to location, size, and age, and the energy efficiency measures to apply based on cost and energy saving. We show how to extrapolate a baseline from few available data, determine retrofit costs, and create calibrated models to estimate energy savings. Retrofits are ranked by levelized cost of saved energy, which ensures that for any budget allocated to retrofit maximum energy savings are obtained at minimum cost to society. The results are summarized in an energy efficiency cost curve enabling policy makers to estimate potential costs and energy savings. We demonstrate the method on a housing stock in northern Italy and show that facade insulation of old buildings in colder climates can compete with gas heating. About 60% baseline energy consumption can be saved doubling current investments, while a maximum saving of 75% requires over three times the current investments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]