ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN THE BUILDING SECTOR

Considering that 40% of the European Union’s energy consumption can be traced back to its buildings, it is essential to improve their energy efficiency to achieve the EU’s energy efficiency targets. Both the rate of energy renovation and its depth, i.e., the amount of energy savings during a renovation, need to be improved. However, there are several challenges to overcome in order to increase market confidence and incite investments in energy efficient buildings, such as enhanced reliability, quality of the renovation recommendations, cost-effectiveness, and compliance with relevant EU standards and the EPBD.

OBJECTIVES      

QualDeEPC will work on EU-wide convergence of the building assessment and the issuance, design, and use of quality-enhanced EPCs as well as their recommendations for building renovation. The aim is to make these recommendations coherent with deep energy renovation towards a nearly-zero energy building stock by 2050. Under the coordination of the Wuppertal Institute, the project partners will work to create consensus in the participating countries and beyond, and to implement as many improvements as possible during the project period, involving certification bodies, energy agencies, building sector and certification stakeholders, and other relevant organisations.

THE APPROACH

QualDeEPC will stimulate such changes by (1) intensive dialogue involving the important stakeholders at all levels from the very beginning in the above four project stages and (2) disseminating its findings among the relevant target audiences in Europe.

THE PROJECT COMMUNITY

QualDeEPC puts in place a networking community of highly experienced practitioners and researchers: The National Expert Fora, as well as an EU-level Technical Advisory Committee.

THE IMPACT

A tool on improved renovation recommendations, coherent with deep renovation/nZEB targets and passports/roadmaps. This will achieve impact in two ways:

  1. Using the software-based assessment tool for EPC recommendations by EPC issuers, which will improve the depth of renovation
  2. Using the tool in informing investments in energy-efficient deep renovation.

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