Page 38 - European Energy Innovation magazine - autumn 2022 edition

Autumn 2022 European Energy Innovation
38 COMMUNICATION

Carbon savings

Detailed assessment of the carbon savings possible today by applying smart combinations of exiting
solutions in the European building stock

By John Smyth (Arup), Filique Nijenmanting (Arup), John Burgess (Arup) and Michael Papapetrou (WIP
Renewable Energies)

ever has it been more storage and smart Building Energy European Market Research
important to ensure that Management System (BEMS) to The RES4BUILD integrated renewable
Europeans can cover the produce low to zero carbon heating energy system is designed to
N energy needs of their and cooling for buildings. This work is be tailored to the needs and
buildings in an affordable and particularly relevant today, because requirements of the users. These
environmentally friendly way. Climate while decarbonisation has been the users are generally defined by the
change acceleration, geopolitical main objective, decoupling from building typology which reflects
challenges and the energy crisis fossil fuels contributes to security of their function and general form.
make the three traditional pillars of supply, while using on-site generated Additionally, location and energy
European energy policy as relevant electricity contributes to affordability performance of such building
as ever: (i) security of supply, (ii) and decouples the heating/cooling typologies affects the RES4BUILD
competitiveness, (iii) sustainability. costs from heavily fluctuating system design, therefore the building
market prices. typologies, climate and energy
The RES4BUILD project started in performance data is collected for
2019 with the aim to decarbonise The project has achieved typical EU buildings.
the energy consumption in remarkable progress, developing
buildings by developing integrated and integrating innovative Fortunately, there has been extensive
renewable-energy-based solutions. technologies which are showcased research on building typologies and
Using onsite renewable energy now in pilot systems in Greece, energy performance for Europe
with decarbonised grid electricity, Denmark and Belgium. This article which we have utilised to produce
the RES4BUILD integrated energy focuses on the work performed to the RES4BUILD blueprint of the EU
system (shown in Fig.1) incorporates assesses the potential impact of building stock. Existing data bases,
heat pump and combined Solar this RES4BUILD integrated energy such as Eurostat, EU Building Stock
Photovoltaic-Thermal (PV/T) system from a decarbonisation Observatory and BPIE, were used for
technologies with thermal energy point of view. the initial data mining, with additional
relevant research projects such as
ENTRANZE, EPISCOPE – TABULA
and STRATEGO reviewed to develop
learnings further.
Figure 1: Graphic representation of the Integrated Energy Solutions in the
RES4BUILD concept
In carrying out this research, it was
decided to represent the EU building
market by 4 building typologies and
4 climate zones as shown in table
1. The chosen building typologies
characterise approx. 86% of the total
EU building stock floor area. Three
locations representative of the EU
climates as set out in EN14825, with
an additional location (Cork, Ireland)
to represent the cooler, maritime
European climate. These 4 climatic
regions how unique characteristics
particularly in terms of peak
heating and cooling requirement.
The minimum energy performance
required of the buildings is chosen
from the local member state’s national

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