ENERGY PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF EXISTING DWELLINGS & NON-RESIDENTIAL BUILDINGS

The existing buildings stock in European countries accounts for over 40% of final energy consumption in the European Union (EU) member states, of which residential use represents 63% of total energy consumption in the buildings sector. Consequently, an increase of building energy performance can constitute an important instrument in the efforts to alleviate the EU energy import dependency and comply with the Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This is also in accordance to the European Directive on the energy performance of buildings (EPBD), which is currently under consideration in all EU member states. The Energy Performance Assessment for Existing Dwellings (EPA-ED) and for Non-Residential Buildings (EPA-NR) are two new methodologies supported by software, developed in the framework of two European projects that focus on energy related issues and are suitable for audits, labeling and issuing an Energy Performance Certificate for existing buildings, in accordance to the EPBD. This paper presents an overview of the two EPA methods and software that can be used to perform building energy audits and assess buildings in a uniform way, perform demand and savings calculations, provide owners with specific advice for measures that can improve energy performance, issue an Energy Performance Certificate for existing buildings, and include some representative results from the pilot studies performed in several European countries.