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For John Dulac, analyst at the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Sustainable Energy Policy and Technology directorate, retrofits represent an essential part of reducing Europe's energy consumption.
"Deep energy retrofits of the existing building stock are critical to meeting a sustainable, cost-effective, low-carbon pathway for the European building sector," he says.
Dulac estimates that around 70 percent of Europe's building stock in 2050 will be composed of buildings that already exist today.
"Even if you're building hundreds of thousand of these passive-style [energy efficient] new buildings, when you're talking about 225 million existing households, it's peanuts, it's nowhere near where we need to be," he says. "So there really needs to be a drive of taking these new technologies for new constructions and translating them to low-cost technologies for existing buildings."
Dulac says that the technologies that need to be applied to existing buildings in terms of insulation, air sealing and low-emissivity, double-pane windows are typically readily available in most markets in Europe for new construction and are often highly cost effective.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 05 2015, @06:34PM
The article is right about sealing the envelope of the house being highly cost effective. Whatever kind of heating and/or cooling you use, insulation will save you a lot of money and pay for itself in a couple years. Nowadays with spray-foam and blown-in insulation a contractor can pull up and get the whole house done in a couple of hours.
Upgrading your HVAC is the second most cost effective measure. If you switch from oil heat to high-efficiency natural gas, or even better, a ground-source heat pump (GSHP) you'll save thousands on your winter heating bill. People who can swap oil for GSHP watch their bill go from thousands of dollars to $100 for the electricity to run the heat exchanger. If you had enough solar panels on your roof you wouldn't even pay that.
If you own your house, making it energy efficient is one of the best investments you can make. It will save you tons of money and add to the value of your home.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday December 05 2015, @07:22PM
The problem is that most of these won't work in old building stock so typically found in older cities.
In your typical euro-city third-floor walkup flat, you have no attic to insulate, you have a heat plant that is ancient, and not yours (landlords), you have no access to ground source heat pumps, your fuel source is dictated, and you don't own the roof.
In the US 60% [census.gov] of the housing is detached (stand alone) single family dwellings, where the home owner has a LOT of choices.
In the EU that number is only 25% [europa.eu] and neither the home owner or the flat dweller has much say in the matter of upgrades.
We have a much bigger problem of upgrading buildings than they do, but the difference is our North American problem is solvable without a tear-down, and do over.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday December 05 2015, @08:03PM
I did predicate what I said upon "if you own your own home," but you're right it's a dilemma for the apartment dweller anywhere, in the US or Europe. The benefits of retrofitting are there for an apartment building owner too, especially since you can't just eschew the heat, by law, the way you could for your own home. But if the landlord is predisposed to behave like a slumlord, and do nothing at all for the building except what he's compelled to, then there's not much tenants can do.
Washington DC delenda est.