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Overcoming barriers to implementation of very low energy residential buildings in Northern Europe

Panel: 5. Saving energy in buildings: The time to act is now

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Åke Blomsterberg, Energy and Building Design
Lund University, Sweden
Karin Engvall, Department of Medical Sciences, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Sweden

Abstract

Very low energy houses use less than 50 % of the energy used in typical buildings and such energy efficient buildings can be achieved in cold climate by carefully designing buildings as a whole. However, the acceptability of very low energy houses in this challenging environment (e.g. North European countries) depends largely on the economic sustainability of these constructions and to this extent, it requires methods and concepts that differ from the one used in central Europe, e.g. in Germany.

The IEE (Intelligent Energy Europe) NorthPass project was therefore initiated with the aim to overcome barriers on the very low energy house markets in cold climate, such as the lack of well-defined concepts adapted to the severe climate conditions, awareness of very low-energy houses, lack of products on the market and customer attitudes.

One of the objectives was to identify and suggest how to overcome technological and non-technological barriers to the implementation of very low energy houses in the North European market (Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania). To this end, PDS (problem detection study) and SWOT analyses were carried out to determine the major advantages and disadvantages of very low energy houses. Solutions were suggested on how to overcome those technological and non-technological barriers. The paper will present and discuss the results.

The project will increase the awareness and market acceptance of very low energy house in the North European construction market, it will accelerate the identification of suitable solutions adapted to the cold climate environment and it will support the implementation of the EU Commission's recommendations regarding very low energy buildings.

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