The energy demand in building sectors for summer air-conditioning is growing exponentially due to global warming, increased living standards and occupant comfort demands throughout the last decades. Concerns over these environmental changes have begun shifting the emphasis from current cooling...

Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not...

Residential buildings strongly contribute to global CO2 emissions due to the high energy demand for electricity and heating, particularly in industrialised countries. Within the EU, decentralised heat generation is of particular relevance for future climate policy, as its emissions are not...

The political discussion on energy efficiency is focusing more and more on the building sector due to its susceptibility to potential market failures like the negative external pollution effects of CO2 emission. Using a discrete choice approach, this paper aims at deriving factors which increase...

The landlord/tenant dilemma arises when the interests of landlords and tenants misalign and is one of the greatest barriers hindering the development of sustainable renovation of residential buildings in Europe. The aim of this research is to investigate how regulatory changes and contractual...

There is currently a lack of harmonization in the building energy efficiency requirements that are mandated by different countries. Energy efficiency is defined by the energy yield of the facilities and by the envelope energy losses. These energy losses are mainly conditioned by the thermal...

Projections of energy demand are important for energy security supply and low carbon futures, and usually rely on final energy consumption trends methods, limiting the opportunity for future options. Methods supported by energy services are much preferred to estimate future energy demand, since...

The built environment contributes around half of total greenhouse gas emissions and with 87% of residential buildings that we will have by 2050 already built, it is vital to adopt sustainable retrofitting practices. The question is: what are the viable solutions? One answer may be green roof...

The integration of different energy sources to cover with the maximum efficiency the building energy demand is one of the principles for achieving the target of the nearly net Zero Energy Buildings (nNZEBs), as defined by the EPBD recast (2010/31/EU). Following this principle, there has been a...

For countries pursuing sustainable development and energy efficiency, the use of smart meters is considered a first step in allowing residential consumers to remotely control their energy consumption, and a promising technology for conserving limited energy resources. However, despite the...