Periodic Reporting for period 1 - crossCert (Cross Assessment of Energy Certificates in Europe)
Okres sprawozdawczy: 2021-09-01 do 2023-02-28
Buildings are the single largest energy consumption sector in Europe. They account for approximately 40% of the overall energy consumption in Europe, and about 36% of the greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. Buildings are therefore crucial elements in the roadmap to improve the European Union's energy and environmental performance, and a cornerstone to achieve its goal of becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, as set out in the EU’s European Green Deal. To compound the problem, according to EU statistics, about 35% of the buildings are more than 50 years old; almost 75% of them are energy inefficient; and only about 1% of the whole building stock is renovated each year.
The primary way to assess the performance of a building in terms of its energy consumption is through Energy Performance Certificates, or EPCs. EPCs are documents issued according to national regulations that express how much energy a building needs annually, how this compares with the state of the art, and often which improvements to the building can be carried out to decrease its energy footprint.
Many aspects of an energy performance certificate are subject to national regulations, which often set out its contents, how energy consumption should be estimated, who is authorised to issue the certificate, and how it can be stored and accessed in regional or national databases.
Improvements to the certification process in the member countries will result in a better use of energy in buildings, and therefore in the critically needed energy savings if the EU policy goals are to be achieved.
crossCert is a project to improve the energy performance certification of buildings by cross testing alternative proposals.
The crossCert project performs cross-testing between the current energy certificates and the new concepts using more than 140 buildings in 10 European countries, and creates a public benchmarking database of test cases; compares and analyses the results of the different approaches; prepares policy recommendations that include potential improvements in accuracy, usability and harmonisation; and Involves networks and alliances for analysis and outreach.
The project builds on the exchange of knowledge among European stakeholders on existing and new EPCs in several member states. This exchange includes a wide cross-certification exercise among European countries, and the deployment of an internet-based EPC Knowledge Exchange Centre.
At the end of the project, new practices and features will be recommended to achieve the end-user acceptance of next-generation EPCs. This will be achieved by cross-testing both existing and forthcoming certification procedures in multiple buildings in ten member countries.
The primary way to assess the performance of a building in terms of its energy consumption is through Energy Performance Certificates, or EPCs. EPCs are documents issued according to national regulations that express how much energy a building needs annually, how this compares with the state of the art, and often which improvements to the building can be carried out to decrease its energy footprint.
Many aspects of an energy performance certificate are subject to national regulations, which often set out its contents, how energy consumption should be estimated, who is authorised to issue the certificate, and how it can be stored and accessed in regional or national databases.
Improvements to the certification process in the member countries will result in a better use of energy in buildings, and therefore in the critically needed energy savings if the EU policy goals are to be achieved.
crossCert is a project to improve the energy performance certification of buildings by cross testing alternative proposals.
The crossCert project performs cross-testing between the current energy certificates and the new concepts using more than 140 buildings in 10 European countries, and creates a public benchmarking database of test cases; compares and analyses the results of the different approaches; prepares policy recommendations that include potential improvements in accuracy, usability and harmonisation; and Involves networks and alliances for analysis and outreach.
The project builds on the exchange of knowledge among European stakeholders on existing and new EPCs in several member states. This exchange includes a wide cross-certification exercise among European countries, and the deployment of an internet-based EPC Knowledge Exchange Centre.
At the end of the project, new practices and features will be recommended to achieve the end-user acceptance of next-generation EPCs. This will be achieved by cross-testing both existing and forthcoming certification procedures in multiple buildings in ten member countries.
The crossCert consortium has selected over 140 buildings as the testbed that will drive our cross testing experience and recommendations. The buildings span all the common usages, from housing to sports facilities.
A testing protocol has been devised to organise testing in several layers, with unique conclusions to be drawn from each. Buildings are therefore arranged into groups. Those in the local group are tested with the respective national protocols, to assess the quantitative accuracy of the certificate. Buildings in a second set are placed in the pairing groups. These buildings are tested among countries sharing similar climatic conditions and allow for a comparison of the certification procedures and results among countries. A third test set is of project-wide buildings for which detailed dynamic models of energy consumption are built. Such detailed models allow for an in-depth examination of the performance of the national energy certificates, enabling for instance a meticulous analysis of the reasons for any quantitative gap between the certificate results and those from the detailed building model.
The building details and the testing results are being placed in an information repository, the crossCert Knowledge Exchange Centre, so that they can be used by third parties willing to conduct their own testing of Energy Performance Certificates. (The Knowledge Exchange Centre is already operative at crossCert.unizar.es and will be fully populated at the end of the project.)
The testing performed in this period will be used in the following one to derive conclusions in respect of the multifaceted aspects of energy certificates; see below. In this period, thorough reviews of the status quo in most of these aspects have been performed and are available on the project website.
The project has set up multiple engagement and dissemination channels, including a website (www.crosscert.eu) a Zenodo Community, Twitter channel, a Facebook page, a LinkedIN page and a LinkedIN Group channel. The impact has been significant so far through all of these channels. For instance, the project website has attracted 1035 active users, with 3224 pageviews, and 174 file downloads. Our crossCert Newsletters have reached 2370 stakeholders directly, including 72 energy agencies. Altogether, 391 stakeholders were directly involved in project dissemination events, and more than 5000 stakeholders were reached. All partners participated at 12 external events and 14 external workshops disseminating crossCert.
A testing protocol has been devised to organise testing in several layers, with unique conclusions to be drawn from each. Buildings are therefore arranged into groups. Those in the local group are tested with the respective national protocols, to assess the quantitative accuracy of the certificate. Buildings in a second set are placed in the pairing groups. These buildings are tested among countries sharing similar climatic conditions and allow for a comparison of the certification procedures and results among countries. A third test set is of project-wide buildings for which detailed dynamic models of energy consumption are built. Such detailed models allow for an in-depth examination of the performance of the national energy certificates, enabling for instance a meticulous analysis of the reasons for any quantitative gap between the certificate results and those from the detailed building model.
The building details and the testing results are being placed in an information repository, the crossCert Knowledge Exchange Centre, so that they can be used by third parties willing to conduct their own testing of Energy Performance Certificates. (The Knowledge Exchange Centre is already operative at crossCert.unizar.es and will be fully populated at the end of the project.)
The testing performed in this period will be used in the following one to derive conclusions in respect of the multifaceted aspects of energy certificates; see below. In this period, thorough reviews of the status quo in most of these aspects have been performed and are available on the project website.
The project has set up multiple engagement and dissemination channels, including a website (www.crosscert.eu) a Zenodo Community, Twitter channel, a Facebook page, a LinkedIN page and a LinkedIN Group channel. The impact has been significant so far through all of these channels. For instance, the project website has attracted 1035 active users, with 3224 pageviews, and 174 file downloads. Our crossCert Newsletters have reached 2370 stakeholders directly, including 72 energy agencies. Altogether, 391 stakeholders were directly involved in project dissemination events, and more than 5000 stakeholders were reached. All partners participated at 12 external events and 14 external workshops disseminating crossCert.
crossCert will liaise with related projects on building energy performance certification to test their proposals and products using, wherever possible, our building set. The projects identified so far for this exercise are those in the 2019 cluster of Coordination and Support Actions and those in the 2020 cluster of Innovation Actions.
From the analysis of our cross testing of existing certificates and of the proposals put forward by other preceding similar projects, the crossCert team expects to achieve the following results in the second half of the project:
(a) A critique of the accuracy of existing estimation methods for the energy demand, even before the building is constructed, or before an expensive renovation is undertaken; more informative scales and Key Performance Indicators, including, where appropriate, metrics pertaining to comfort, climate resilience and demand flexibility, in addition to more traditional energy metrics; and more meaningful proposals for renovation measures.
(b) More added-value features, such as an improved consolidation in, and interaction with, administrative databases; better adaptation to user and investor requirements, and a close integration with other building services such as energy audits, logbooks and Building Renovation Passports.
(c) A more engaging and meaningful user experience of products and services related to Energy Performance Certificates, and across the range of users (expert users, general users, issuers); improved training of certificate issuers, starting with the identification of the current strengths and weaknesses; and proposals for the promotion and marketing of certificates that highlight their added value and potentials.
(d) Identification of opportunities for, and barriers to, increased homogeneity in energy certificates across Europe by identifying and engaging stakeholders; and by creating a Knowledge Exchange Center for sharing information that will assist in cross learning and homogenising.
From the analysis of our cross testing of existing certificates and of the proposals put forward by other preceding similar projects, the crossCert team expects to achieve the following results in the second half of the project:
(a) A critique of the accuracy of existing estimation methods for the energy demand, even before the building is constructed, or before an expensive renovation is undertaken; more informative scales and Key Performance Indicators, including, where appropriate, metrics pertaining to comfort, climate resilience and demand flexibility, in addition to more traditional energy metrics; and more meaningful proposals for renovation measures.
(b) More added-value features, such as an improved consolidation in, and interaction with, administrative databases; better adaptation to user and investor requirements, and a close integration with other building services such as energy audits, logbooks and Building Renovation Passports.
(c) A more engaging and meaningful user experience of products and services related to Energy Performance Certificates, and across the range of users (expert users, general users, issuers); improved training of certificate issuers, starting with the identification of the current strengths and weaknesses; and proposals for the promotion and marketing of certificates that highlight their added value and potentials.
(d) Identification of opportunities for, and barriers to, increased homogeneity in energy certificates across Europe by identifying and engaging stakeholders; and by creating a Knowledge Exchange Center for sharing information that will assist in cross learning and homogenising.