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European campaign for Smart Energy Buildings
Our vision
As soon as possible, Europe’s buildings shall stop wasting huge amounts of energy and
shall become completely independent from the use of non renewable energy sources such
as gas, oil, coal and uranium.
By 2050 at latest, all new buildings as well as the existing building stock will be heated,
cooled and operated only with renewable energies. This will happen through a smart
combination of energy efficiency measures and of renewable energy supply technologies.
This is our vision, but not only:
It is a smart deal!
Yes, we can do it!
Actually, we must,
and, yes, we will do it...
... as soon as possible!
A European campaign for Smart Energy Buildings will be launched in 2011 by a
consortium of leading associations, agencies and companies specialised in renewable
energy, energy efficiency and sustainable communication1. The campaign is supported by
the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme of the European Commission.2
1 EREC (European Renewable Energy Council), EuroACE (European Alliance of Companies for Energy Efficiency in Buildings),
CEETB (European Energy Efficiency Installers – Committee for the Construction Industry), FEDARENE (European Federation of Regional Energy and Environment Agencies), Energy Cities (Association of European local authorities inventing their energy future), Climate Alliance (Association of European local authorities committed to climate protection), ADEME (French Environment and Energy Management Agency), eclareon, Pleon Ketchum.
2 The sole responsibility for the content of this document lies with the authors. It does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the
European Union. Neither the EACI nor the European Commission is responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
It is a smart deal!
The building sector has the largest potential to reduce energy consumption and CO2
emissions, both in the short and in the long term, ahead of energy supply, industry and other
sectors3. Every fossil energy unit, or kWh of electricity unnecessarily used to heat or cool
buildings could and should be kept for other purposes, for which alternatives are not
available or less convenient.
Investing in energy efficiency measures and renewable energy supply for our buildings is
one of the most economic ways to achieve a number of benefits for building owners,
building users, and society in general.
Smart energy building solutions replace imported fuels with domestic technologies
and local jobs.
Investment in smart energy buildings technologies are a cheap, low hanging fruit, i.e.
the most economic strategy to reduce the energy consumption of many households,
organisations, and of society in general.
Smart energy buildings protect individuals and society from the risk of interruptions
of energy supply. In the last years, we have seen how vulnerable Europe is to gas
supply interruptions during the winter time: whole regions remain cold, life is put in
danger. Smart energy buildings can be heated autonomously. Every step in this
direction reduces our risk and vulnerability.
Investment in smart energy solutions for buildings immediately increases the capital
value of the property and leads to long term reductions in operating costs.
Smart energy buildings are an insurance against the risk of severe price increases of
conventional energy sources. Many experts assert that this risk is likely to worsen in
the foreseeable future. In this case building owners, building users and society in
general will be better off if they have already made their buildings energy smart.
Smart energy buildings are the best antidote to fuel poverty.
Smart energy buildings can contribute to the preservation of our local and global
environment at relatively low costs.
3 For the short term: Buildings and Climate Change, UNEP Sustainable Buildings & Climate Initiative. For the long
term: Common carbon metric for measuring energy use & reporting greenhouse gas emissions from building
operations, UNEP, World Resources Institute, 2010.
Yes, we can do it!
We already have the technologies to massively reduce the energy consumption of
buildings with a return on investment within the lifetime of the equipment.
In existing buildings, it is possible to achieve very substantial reductions of conventional
energy consumption by investing in a smart combination of energy efficiency measures and
renewable supply technologies. The investment can pay itself back in a number of years,
and certainly well within the lifetime of the building, more so when energy prices remain
reasonably high. Yes, we can start now. Unlike some so-called “promising” CO2 or energy
saving technologies that might be available, in the best case scenario, in the coming
decades, smart energy building solutions are available and affordable today.
Millions of building owners and users can contribute now to the (r)evolution towards a
sustainable building sector.
Buildings completely independent from conventional energy sources have already
been demonstrated. In the near future, they can become the cost-competitive standard.
As for new buildings, thousands of passive houses built in many different countries4 show in
practice that very smart energy buildings are possible.
4 See http://www.passivhausprojekte.de/projekte.php?lang=en According to the Passive House Institute, a
passive residential building is defined as following: Annual heating requirement ≤ 15 kWh/(m²a), Primary energy
Further improvements will occur, leading to cost reductions, easier installation and larger
dissemination. For instance, solar houses covering 100% of their heating demand with solar
thermal energy from their own roof have been demonstrated in several places from Sweden
to the Alps5.
Actually, we must.
It is nothing new, but it is a fact: we must dramatically change our energy consuming
patterns, as individuals and collectively, for a number of compelling reasons:
Europe imports nearly 60% of its energy, and the dependency is forecast to grow if no
action is taken. Millions of Europeans have already experienced interruption of supply
leaving their homes, offices, schools, hospitals cold in winter. Every additional smart
energy building reduces our vulnerability and improves our trade balance.
For individuals, and for our economies, smart energy buildings are an insurance against
the risk of sudden, strong increases in energy price.
Buildings represent over a third of total carbon emissions in the EU, providing a key
opportunity to contribute to carbon mitigation and air quality objectives by moving to
zero carbon. In the long term, there is simply no alternative: long before the last barrels
of oil will be exposed in museums, fossil energy sources will become too scarce and
expensive to be wasted on heating and cooling buildings.
Some facts & figures:
Buildings are responsible for about 40% of the EU's total final energy consumption and
CO2 emissions in the European Union6.
The lion’s share of the energy consumed in buildings is related to heat demand, only a
small fraction to electrical appliances. Heat demand can be easily reduced by efficiency
measures; the remaining demand can be easily covered with renewable sources.
With energy saving measures alone, 154 Mtoe per year can be cost-effectively saved in
buildings up to 2020. This represents circa 13% of the current total final energy
consumption in the EU, or the total energy consumption including industry and transport
of Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland and Bulgaria together.
460 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year could be avoided each year from
buildings using existing products and services.
270 billion € could be saved annually via the implementation of simple energy efficiency
measures in buildings, such as wall and roof insulation7.
consumption ≤ 120 kWh/(m²a), Airtightness for building envelope n50 ≤ 0,6 air changes/h. With this level of
efficiency, it is usually possible to cover the remaining demand with renewable energy sources.
5 http://www.sonnenhaus-institut.de/ http://www.jenni.ch/pdf/Artikel_CompactThyssen_english.pdf
http://www.jenni.ch/pdf/Artikel_SunandWindenergy2.pdf
6 European Commission, SEC(2008) 286, http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=SEC:2008:2865:FIN:EN:PDF
A 2010 study showed that, for Hungary alone, up to 131,000 net new jobs could be created
by 2020 via a large-scale programme for deep renovation of buildings, as opposed to
43,000 jobs via a sub-optimal renovation alternative.8 EU-wide, millions of jobs could be
created if Europe realises our vision.
Yes, we will!
Investments in smart energy building solutions must take place at the same time in new
buildings and in existing buildings.
The average yearly new build rate is estimated to be between 1% and 1.3% of the existing
building stock of approximately 210 million buildings in Europe, with around 53 billion m² of
usable indoor space for all types of human activity. The vast majority of projects are oriented
to the minimum requirements under national building regulations which do not come close to
the nearly zero energy standard, nor to the passive house standards already implemented
many thousands of times over across Europe. Every new building not benefiting from state
of the art efficiency and renewable technologies is a missed opportunity, leading to
excessive energy consumption for the next decades or centuries.
Given the relatively low number of new buildings, the bulk of the potential lies in the
renovation of the existing building stock. However, major renovations take place on average
every 30-40 years. If the window of opportunity offered by a major renovation has gone,
implementing renewable or energy efficiency technologies becomes more expensive and
difficult.
Therefore, it is crucial that a large part of the renovation projects are deep energy
renovations, i.e. aiming at a massive reduction of the energy consumption, and at a
renewable supply for the remaining energy needs. Currently, however, most renovation
projects probably reach only a 15-20% energy savings without any renewable energy
supply, rather than the 60-90% (deep renovation) cost-effective savings potential of any
retrofit.
From looking at these figures, it is plain to see that a business as usual scenario will not
allow for a significant change in the energy performance of Europe’s buildings over the next
decade, apart, perhaps, for the small stock of new buildings.
7 Sensitivity Analysis of Cost Effective Climate Protection in the EU Building Stock – Ecofys VI – 6 June 2006
http://www.eurima.org/uploads/Documents/documents/Sensitivity-analysis_EcofysVI_06June06_final.pdf
8 Employment Impacts of a Large-Scale Deep Building Energy Retrofit Programme in Hungary, Center for Climate
Change and Sustainable Energy Policy of the Central European University, 2010.
The European campaign for Smart Energy Buildings will contribute to move Europe from
a loser, business as usual scenario towards the realisation of our vision.
It is a smart deal. We can do it. Actually we know we have to do it. And we want all relevant
stakeholders to get active and to decide: Let’s do it!
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