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This paper presents the ENERSI platform, an energy information system that provides advanced energy services by means of integrating energy related data from multiple domains and formats using Semantic Web technologies. The platform services can provide qualified information at different scales – from building to district, city and region – to different kind of users – such as building owners, city planner, energy agencies, architects, contractors and consultants – to take decisions aimed at improving the building energy performance in their respective decision-making realms.

Energy retrofitting solutions applied in residential building envelopes often consist in adding an insulation layer on the building facade and substituting the old windows with better performing ones. Such measures increase the thermal insulation of the envelope and reduce the energy need for space heating, but also reduce the daylight availability, due to the lower visible transmittance of highly insulated windows. This drawback may have strong effect in Norway, where the daylight availability in the winter season is little. This paper investigates into the consequences on energy use for space heating and electricity use for lighting given by the substitution of existing windows with highly insulated windows in Norwegian residential buildings. Three apartment buildings with different construction systems of the external facades and located in Trondheim are investigated. The buildings were built before the 1900, in the first decade of the 1900, and in the 1960s, respectively. The U-value of the external facades varies from 0.96 W/m2K to 0.26 W/m2K, and the U-value of the existing windows varies from 1.6 W/m2K to 2.8 W/m2K. The new windows have a U-value of 0.5 W/m2K. Scenarios are modelled to simulate the use patterns of artificial lighting in the apartments. Use patterns are modelled by considering occupancy hours and type of activity to cover different scenarios. Results show that the substitution of the existing windows reduces the median value of the Daylight Autonomy by at least 50%, and the additional electricity use for lighting is calculated to be between 17% and 64% of the potential energy saving for space heating.

Energy retrofitting of historic or existing buildings is a challenge that it has not yet been properly fully addressed. Multiple projects and methodologies are published every day but neither of them with the holistic approach that will assure complete success since the design phase. This stock is never considered as a whole. Its components are installed, serviced and maintained by different companies and in different stages without a holistic approach to the overall building operation. The result is a lack of energy efficiency and feedback of the solutions implemented once the buildings are refurbished. Nevertheless, existing buildings play a key role in the achievement of the ambitious energy saving and greenhouse gas reduction targets that Europe has fixed for 2020 and 2050. Research has demonstrated that the impact in terms of decrease of energy use and CO2 will be strong, considering that, in Europe, 80% of the 2030 building stock already exists and 30% are historical buildings. To achieve these goals, reliable data about energy consumption, building components and systems performance of the existing building stock is needed. This paper presents a pre-assessment methodology to tackle the energy retrofitting of historic and existing residential buildings based on the Maturity Matrix Assessment. The maturity of the implementation of energy efficiency measures in Brussels historic residential stockis evaluated to determine future appropriate implementations. The matrix synthetizes appropriate strategies for this specific stock and provides a global map of the problematic, requirements and solutions., SCOPUS: cp.p, info:eu-repo/semantics/published

Architectural constraints are a crucial aspect in energy retrofitting of historic buildings. Usual global interventions are often not allowed since preserving historical values of the building stock is mandatory. In this paper, the authors provide an alternative procedure by identifying the most profitable local interventions in order to maintain the architectural values during the restoration and energy retrofitting operations. So, thermal zones prioritization is the key element considered in this study. Its aim is to analyse which energy efficiency measures could be applied to a listed building, but at certain technological elements rather than a unique choice for the entire building envelope. Thus it will prove that you can work with individual elements of the building without compromising the protection of architectural good. The attention was placed in promoting single measures and improving the quality of the built environment. The case study is an historical building in Rome, currently used for university purposes. The analysis was carried out through a building simulation model so that to assess the building energy performance before and after the selected interventions. The chosen software is TRNSYS. This approach shows how interventions, usually not applicable at the building scale, would be beneficial if applied at local scale such as a single thermal zone or a single technological unit. The authors built a reference scenario and, for each identified thermal zone, tested the energy efficiency improvement in terms of heating demand reduction coming from the hypothesized local intervention.

The research of five educational institution buildings and three municipality department buildings were carried out in Liepāja municipality, Latvia. Aim of the study is to draw attention to finding balance among energy efficiency, thermal comfort and indoor air quality dilemma. The research of recently renovated public sector buildings was done. The combination of factors that form microclimate and indoor air quality are described in the paper. Emphasis is put on a person's ability to perform mental tasks in regards of changes in thermal comfort and air quality. Surveys of buildings’ inhabitants and economic aspects of human productivity changes were carried out in the research. Also four ventilation scenarios have been modelled and economic benefits of each scenario have been assessed. Different air exchange rates can make 19% human productivity improvement. Using ventilation systems as it is designed already gives economic benefit and not all the buildings need additional investments for new system implementation. The economic benefit in four buildings is more than 20 000 euro already in second year. The priority for planning, designing and managing education institution buildings should be indoor environment and thermal comfort of inhabitant.

The paper presents actual knowledge concerning the indirect evaporative cooling (IEC). This cooling technology is promising to develop in the near future due to its very low energy consumption and high efficiency in its range of applications. The review is presenting in details: theory, working principles, flow and construction. The IEC equipment and technology is suitable in different air conditioning applications: commercial, industrial, residential or data centres. The IEC technology is completely environmental friendly and has very low global warming impact. The single disadvantage of IEC is the water consumption.

This paper has as its main focus to define the drivers of retrofitting shopping centres. The drivers will provide the basis for developing energy retrofitting concepts, offering amongst other things, constructive technology, an understanding of typical functional patterns and socio-cultural aspects and an understanding of potentials associated with interaction with local energy grids. The primary focus of the study is energy use, but the fields of facilities, functions, management, ergonomics, safety and logistics are also studied, because sustainable shopping centres in addition to being energy efficient are commercially viable, accessible social arenas for all sections of society.

The Sassi of Matera are a unique example in the world of rock settlements, developed from natural caves carved into the rock and molded into increasingly complex structures inside two large natural amphitheaters. Research focuses on the compatibility of the energy efficiency measures applied in Sassi buildings with the recent MiBACT guidelines on “Energy efficiency improvements in cultural heritage” and AiCARR guidelines on “Energy efficiency of historical buildings”. The paper aims to analyze energy and environmental performance of different building typologies and monuments of the Sassi site.

Phase Change Materials (PCMs) have the ability to absorb and release thermal energy, in the form of latent heat, during the melting or solidifying processes respectively. Thus, they may be used as additives in the production of thermally efficient composite building materials, such as plasters. This paper focuses on the design and production of PCM-enhanced lime plasters with significantly low thermal conductivity and increased specific heat capacity. The aforementioned plasters are appropriate for application in southern European climatic conditions. Due to their compatibility with traditional substrate materials, they may also be used for the renovation and retrofitting of existing structures. 97 539 545

Every year governments of the European Member States invest several billion Euros in maintenance and upkeep of their schools. With 17% of non-residential buildings in the European Union being educational buildings, there is a substantial opportunity for setting examples of integrated refurbishment actions, which address functional and energy-related aspects in a joint view. Currently these potentials are not fully exploited. The reasons for the few numbers of truly holistic school refurbishment projects can be found in the limited budgets, the political and institutional framework conditions as well as the lack of innovative and holistic building refurbishment concepts. The assumption for research was that refurbishment in educational buildings focuses mostly on single measures in respect of maintenance and adaptation of the building structure. Energy efficiency measures are only selectively considered and functional changes are rarely implemented in existing buildings. This paper summarizes the results of the research project SchulRen+ [5] that analyzed school buildings in an integrated approach: Considering structural, functional and energy-related aspects in a joint view – the project reveals high performance refurbishment actions that have the potential for the development of ‘Nearly Zero Energy’ or ‘Plus Energy’ buildings. Based on the example of the school building stock of the city of Vienna, a nationally funded project analyzed these constraints with the goal of providing workable solutions for integrated school refurbishments. In an interdisciplinary approach, stakeholders from the city municipality, schools as well as building professionals provided input for the development of a methodology for replicable energy- and functionally optimized school refurbishment concepts. Structural, functional and energy relevant framework conditions were summarized and synergetic potentials of comprehensive school refurbishments were highlighted. Following the requirements of the stakeholders, different scenarios (light, intermediate, advanced) were subsequently tested in terms of functionality, energy efficiency and life cycle costs. For one case study a typical end of 19 th century building was selected - similar building types can be found across central Europe. It demonstrated the required changes in prospective school refurbishment projects. The emphasis was on the energetic optimization in synergy with the optimization of the functional room concepts in order to give justice to the changed requirements in new teaching types and methods. The case study resulted in concrete recommendations for decision support and showed how portfolio management and a holistic refurbishment approach could be undertaken for larger educational building stocks.