2016 ASHRAE Winter Conference

As a result of numerous pilot projects conducted all over the world, it was demonstrated that energy use reduction in commercial and public buildings can been reduced by more than 50% after renovation, and that some renovated buildings have met the Passive House Institute energy efficiency standard or even Net Zero energy state [1].  This paper summarizes the results of these studies. To evaluate cost effectiveness of deep energy retrofit (DER) using “core technologies” bundle, compared to typical building renovation based on minimum energy requirements, the paper proposes the use of net present value (NPV) of the difference in energy savings to estimate the budget increase limit. Since most of parameters required for LCC analysis differ not only by the individual country but also within the country (first costs and labor rates, energy rates, life of the project, inflation and discount rates, etc.), the concept of Scalar Ratio [8] is used to calculate limitations in renovation budget increase.

This paper presents the results of computational modeling analysis conducted by the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center team of two categories of buildings with relatively low internal loads in 15 U.S. climates using the Net Zero Planner tool. This tool enabled simultaneous simulation of multiple building types and multiple technology bundles of energy efficiency measures in different climate zones. This research supported development of requirements for building envelope characteristics for DER projects. Information presented in the paper along with results of similar studies conducted in Denmark, Estonia, Austria, Germany, China, and UK [2,3,4] for their nation-specific climate conditions have been used to develop general guidelines for technology bundles to be used in DER projects [5].

International Energy Agency’s Energy in Buildings and Communities Program Annex 61 focuses on developing and demonstrating financial and technical concepts for deep energy retrofits of public buildings. A first and important step to define the methodology is to examine the economic aspects of deep energy retrofits in each of the participating countries. Estonia, Germany, Canada, Austria and Denmark have conducted a series of simulations in order to determine the economic conditions in the renovation of a pre- 1980s building. The analysis shows how deep renovation solutions and economic conditions differ from country to country and emphasizes the individual economic challenges of deep energy renovation. The analysis will be used in developing and demonstrating new and alternative funding mechanisms for a deep renovation project. This paper describes results for northern Europe, i.e. Estonia and Denmark.

Within EBC Annex 61: Business and Technical Concepts for Deep Energy Retrofit of Public Buildings are developed to increase pace and quality of DER projects in the public sector. Subtask A targets is to assess accomplished DER projects to define find optimized bundles both from energy efficiency and economical perspective in each of the participating countries. Based on general assumptions defined by the Annex 61 team, modeling studies for different types of buildings and different climate zones have been done. The paper describes the base lining and modeling process, the economic assumptions made for energy prizes, maintenance and other operating costs and consider the investment costs, the cost optimization process and the carbon footprint of the scenarios. The measure bundles resulting from the modeling are described.