ALliance for Deep RENovation in buildings (ALDREN) Implementing the European Common Voluntary Certification Scheme, as back-bone along the whole deep renovation process.

Project Information

ALDREN

Grant agreement ID: 754159

DOI

10.3030/754159

Project closed

EC signature date 6 October 2017

Start date 1 November 2017

End date 30 September 2020

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Secure, clean and efficient energy

Total cost

€ 1 982 206,25

EU contribution

€ 1 982 206,25

Coordinated by

CENTRE SCIENTIFIQUE ET TECHNIQUE DU BATIMENT
France

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ALDREN (ALliance for Deep RENovation in buildings (ALDREN)Implementing the European Common Voluntary Certification Scheme, as back-bone along the whole deep renovation process.)

Reporting period: 2019-05-01 to 2020-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

To reach the European energy and climate objectives, the refurbishment of existing building stocks towards the deep renovation and NZEB levels is to be dramatically accelerated, in terms of both annual renovation rate and quality.
The ALDREN objectives are to achieve higher renovation rates and better renovation quality by overcoming market barriers and preparing the ground for Investment.
ALDREN bring together in ALDREN Alliance the main stakeholders involved in building renovation to specify the needs of the non-residential building sector and to organize the use of the ALDREN procedure.
Building professionals request that energy performance assessments should be made:
- comparable over Europe,
- more reliable through the articulation of both calculated and actual energy consumptions,
- linked to financing and overall building assets valuation,
- consistent with the preservation and improvement of comfort and indoor air quality,
- more dynamic to engage property owners on deep renovation plans coupled with their building renovation needs and own expectations.
The ALDREN project answer the market request for common reliable tools by supporting the European Voluntary Certification Scheme (EVCS) policy instrument (EPBD Art. 11(9)) and by completing it to reach the needed holistic approach for deep renovation.
The ALDREN overarching outcome will be the infrastructure to enable market transformation by deep renovation and directly support the EU policies (EED, EPBD).
The excellence of the ALDREN solutions offered are:
1) A harmonized Energy performance rating based on the European Voluntary Certification Scheme (EVCS) verified by measurements to increase comparability, confidence and market uptake by standardized solutions (CEN / ISO standards under mandate M/480);
2) Associating low energy renovation with high quality indoor environments to trigger renovation and to promote health and comfort;
3) Aligning market recognition of high quality with enhanced building value by financial tools and capacity building. Establishing business case for deep renovation to motivate private investment.
These solutions are integrated in a consistent, common way in a building renovation passport, including a renovation roadmap, to ensure the results and effective financing also in case of step by step renovation.
The impact on energy savings during the project is estimated at 30 GWh and at 1000 GWh/a after the project.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To achieve higher renovation rates and better renovation quality in the non-residential building sector, ALDREN estimates that to overcome the market barriers a holistic and common European approach is needed.
"Holistic" is not only related to building, systems, different fields of competences (e.g. energy, health + well-being) but also to the market actors because nobody can trigger renovation alone.
There is a need for a common language between these different actors.
Therefore, the following work has been performed since the beginning of the project.
• Bring together, within an ALDREN Alliance, the key stakeholders of the renovation process
In several meetings fruitful exchanges with different stakeholder groups (developers, finance, certification, architects, designers, construction, politics) took place.
ALDREN was invited to present ALDREN outcomes to all EU Member States Ministries having in charge the EPBD transposition. With the support of Member of parliament, ALDREN organised an event presenting and discussing the ALDREN outcomes in the EU parliament.
These meetings confirmed that the ALDREN outcomes cover well the interest of professional stakeholders and public authorities.
• European voluntary energy performance certificate, Energy rating & targets
A common scale and energy rating have been worked out which are based not on energy consumption but on the energy performance related to cost optimality.
Numerical values for the reference points of the scale have been defined for hotels and offices. To allow EU wide comparability one reference point for each of three climate zones are proposed.
The information provided in the ALDREN EPC is fulfilling the request of recast EPBD on EPC of better quality.
The information provided in the ALDREN EPC to the end-users is fulfilling the request of recast EPBD on EPC of better quality. It considers health and well-being, information on real consumption, Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI).
• Addressing health & wellbeing
To document the quality of indoor environment the ALDREN TAIL index was invented. TAIL integrates the four major components defining indoor environmental quality into one index.
TAIL stands for T= thermal environment, A= acoustic environment, I=indoor air quality and L= luminous (visual) environment. Twelve parameters were selected based on different criteria including feasibility.
The main references for these quality levels are EN 16798-1:2018, World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines for Indoor and Ambient Air Quality and Level(s).
• Linking EVC, reliability, health + well-being to the financial valuation
One of the main barriers hindering deep energy renovation is due to the gap existing between an engineer’s approach of sustainability topics in buildings and the financial analyst’s interest.
The methodology worked out consists in additional financial indicators to be added in the building passport and EVC as well as guidance on how to calculate these indicators in order to better integrate energy, health + comfort into asset valuation, risk appraisal and renovation decisions.
The test of these indicators on pilot buildings confirmed that non-energy benefits should be considered for cost optimality calculation because only energy costs savings might not be sufficient motivation for deep renovation.
The increased market value by deep renovation (8 - 26% for pilot buildings) exceeded the investment costs for deep renovation.
• Rendering of the collected data and results in a building renovation passport (BRP)
The ALDREN BRP is composed by two main elements: the ALDREN BuildLog , the ALDREN RenoMap. In the ALDREN BuildLog a data model has been defined to structure and capitalize the building information.
• Dissemination, communication and market uptake
To increase renovation quality and rate skilled workforce is needed. ALDREN prepared training materials and run live training sessions to confirm the adaptation and relevancy of the contents to the targeted audience. In addition, ALDREN continued with online training courses in cooperation with the BuildUp platform.
In total several hundred professionals have been trained in classroom training, online live or in streaming.
The feasibility, the adequation to the needs of the professional and the impact of the ALDREN outcomes on KPI as the reduction of primary energy consumption and the increased use of renewables has been proofed in 20 pilot building operations (> 220 000 m2) in 6 European countries.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

With the holistic common EU wide approach and the common language, the ambition of ALDREN is to become “the” European quality benchmark of buildings used in the Green Deal taxonomy.
European funding should be based on European quality benchmark of buildings
ALDREN include policy support and increase of business skills.

ALDREN IEQ measurements

ALDREN pilot buildings (extract)

ALDREN event EU Parliament

The ALDREN holistic approach

ALDREN thermal score

TAIL - then ALDREN indoor environment indicator

The ALDREN energy rating scale

ALDREN presentation at WSED days in Austria