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iBRoad2EPC – Upgrading EPCs to support Europe’s climate ambitions

Panel: 7. Policies and programmes for better buildings

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Peter Mellwig, Ifeu – Institut für Energie- und Umweltforschung GmbH, Germany
Martin Pehnt, ifeu - institute for energy and environmental research, Germany
Julia Lempik, ifeu - institute for energy and environmental research, Germany
Jonathan Volt, BPIE, Germany
Marianna Papaglastra, SYMPRAXIS Team, Greece
Alexander Deliyannis, SYMPRAXIS Team, Greece
Alice Corovessi
Eleftheria Touloupaki

Abstract

Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and Building Renovation Passports (BRP) will play a central role in the roll-out of EU’s Renovation Wave, as the instruments are key to trigger renovation demand and ensure targeted renovations. The EPC is the basic element that informs about the energy performance of buildings. Thus, it raises interest for energy performance and makes it part of building assessment in the market. Millions of EPCs are issued every year across the EU. BRPs were introduced in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to “provide a clear roadmap for staged renovation over the lifetime of a building, helping owners and investors plan the best timing and scope for interventions.”

The Horizon 2020 project “iBRoad2EPC” aims to bridge the BRP with the EPC. It is building on the results of the iBRoad project (2017-2020) which developed, tested and delivered a model for the BRP supporting homeowners with personalised advice to facilitate stepwise deep renovation. This bridging will make EPCs more useful and provide tailored advice for stepwise deep renovation.

The aim is to improve reliability and effectiveness of EPCs, thereby establishing the next generation of EPCs that will support Europe's decarbonisation ambitions. This will be done by clustering the project’s activities around four main pillars:

1. assess the needs, potential and practicability of merging the EPC with the BRP in a new form: the iBRoad2EPC;

2. adapt the iBRoad concept to become part of EPCs;

3. test and evaluate the applicability of iBRoad2EPC in six countries (Bulgaria, Greece, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Spain), including training for energy auditors and EPC issuers and

4. facilitate the adoption and exploitation of the iBRoad2EPC model across Europe. Implementing authorities in the six countries are directly involved in the process of conceptualisation, development and testing of iBRoad2EPC to become an integral part of existing relevant schemes. Targeted communication, dissemination and exploitation activities will support further acceptance and uptake.

This paper presents the conceptualisation and design of integrating BRP elements into EPCs according to pillar 2. This comprises the question of information depth in the iBRoad2EPC which is determined by the targeted market coverage on the one hand and by the effort that the required added information causes on the other hand. As the aims of EPCs differ slightly across the Member States, information depth of the iBRoad2EPC has to adapt flexibly to the specific country requirements. The paper also presents the BRP and Building Logbook developed in the predecessor project iBRoad.

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