Energy performance criteria for residential buildings: A comparison of Finnish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Russian building codes

Building code are considered to be an effective policy tool to reduce energy use in buildings. In practice, national priorities influence the indicators and criteria adopted in the building codes. Consequently, neighbouring countries with similar climate conditions may use different criteria in their building codes to regulate the energy performance. In this paper, the energy performance criteria and their relative stringency in the latest residential building codes of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia are compared. The study is based on energy performance evaluations of one single-family building and one multi-family building, located in the north of Sweden. Both buildings complied with the Norwegian and Russian building code. However, the buildings did not comply with the specific fan power and heat loss criteria in the Finnish building code. Additionally, the single-family building did not comply with the specific primary energy and electric powerdemand criteria in the Swedish building code when heated by an electric heater. The national standard input data were found to have a large influence on the buildings’ compliance with the studied energy use criteria. Policy implications of the results are discussed.