Active Houses – development of carbon neutral buildings with healthy indoor comfort

Panel: Panel 7. Innovative buildings technologies

Author:
Kurt Emil Eriksen, VKR Holding, Denmark

Abstract

The European Commission and the European Parliament are calling for national strategies for low to zero carbon housing in their proposal for a revision of the EPBD; the European Commission is also recommending to include application of renewable energy sources, use of passive heating and cooling elements and shading in the design of the building and in the design of the building and to ensure indoor air quality and adequate natural light in buildings.

A few Member States have already initiated targets on low energy housing, and there are several demonstration projects showing how future housing could be both zero carbon buildings and have a high indoor comfort level.

The European and national strategies for low energy housing must focus on energy efficiency and CO ₂ reductions, but as people spend approximately 90% of their life inside buildings, future housing also needs to be developed with a focus on healthy indoor comfort.

The different national standards for low energy housing have mainly been focusing on energy savings, but some new standards also focus on energy saving in combination with indoor comfort requirements, like the "Sustainable Home standard" and BOLIG+.

At the same time the German energy legislation and the EU Renewable Energy Directive are setting requirements to integrate a proportion of renewable energy into all new buildings and buildings undergoing major renovation, while others like France and England have targets to move towards energy producing houses.

Therefore, a new approach, where energy efficiency, indoor climate and integration of renewable energy are included, is needed. A number of partners from the construction sector have initiated the first thoughts and, as they intend to move from passive systems to active systems, the network is named Active Houses.