1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
12345678
“Pure pragmatism can't imagine a bold future. Pure idealism can't get anything done. It is the delicate blend of both that drives innovation.”
— Simon Sinek
iBRoad2EPC represents an ambitious though pragmatic effort to catalyse deep renovation of European buildings, by upgrading and making use of the main tool already widely available in the market, namely Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs), thus contributing to the EU’s climate objectives.
While currently EPCs are mostly focused on rating the present state of a building in respect to energy performance, they also provide a useful reference point for (a) identifying the building's potential for improvement and (b) incentivising action towards such improvement. Upcoming developments in relevant EU policies seek to enhance these aspects, among others, by, e.g. setting Minimum Energy Performance Standards for buildings and defining specific benchmarks for building renovations.
iBRoad2EPC's approach can work in synergy with such developments, while supporting win-win solutions in a much broader context. Its assumptions are none other than the real renovation market conditions: the majority of building renovations in Europe are financed –and very often supervised– by the owners themselves, while also being implemented in stages, at least in the residential sector. This entails several challenges, including the owners' probable lack of know-how, which can impact the quality, depth as well as the cost of the renovation. A common issue is 'lock-in', whereby choices during the first stages of a stepwise renovation limit the potential –or disproportionately raise the cost– of future improvements.
In this context, authoritative guidance is essential.
Scaling buildings renovation presents a formidable challenge due to the major differentiation both between broader typologies and between individual buildings, as well as between different owners' needs and resources. Customised guidance needs to be provided by experts, representing high upfront costs and limited numbers that can be served.
This was the route taken by iBRoad, iBRoad2EPC's predecessor project, which focused on developing a model Building Renovation Passport (BRP) –a step-by-step renovation plan customised for individual residential buildings and according to their owners' means and requirements. The BRP was complemented by a Digital Building Logbook (DBL), a repository for building information.
iBRoad2EPC follows on iBRoad's footsteps, while taking a more market-oriented and pragmatic approach, simplifying and cutting down the expected cost of the renovation plan, integrating it with the EPC and facilitating its implementation at scale. Specifically, iBRoad2EPC has the following objectives:
Objective 1: Upgrade EPCs by exploring and demonstrating the integration of selected elements of the Building Renovation Passport, in particular customised recommendations to achieve deep renovations, and of the Digital Building Logbook.
Objective 2: Enhance the information provided in the EPC to improve its reliability and value for the end-user, by incorporating features covering complementary dimensions, such as comfort and indoor environmental quality, the smart dimension of buildings, and real consumption data to close the gap between calculated and measured performance. The list of specific features will be finalised during the project.
Objective 3: Facilitate the convergence of training requirements for energy experts and auditors, to boost the quality and reliability of EPCs across Europe, by developing training modules for new EPC features, such as for the provision of customised recommendations to building owners, indoor environmental quality, smart dimension, real energy performance, and testing the modules' integration into existing EPC training schemes.
Objective 4: Enable the roll-out of next generation EPCs in EU markets by exploring and forging links with supportive frameworks and other initiatives, demonstrating, through case studies, the potential of the new EPC.
Objective 5: Demonstrate how to stimulate the use of next generation EPCs as a central tool to promote deep renovation of the EU building stock and achieve a highly efficient and decarbonised building stock by 2050.
Objective 6: Ensure deployment of the iBRoad2EPC tools and methods beyond the project duration and geographical scope.
