Building EQ: tools and methods for linking EPBD and continuous commissioning

While the building sector accounts for more than 40% of EU energy consumption, the energy saving’s potential - especially in existing buildings – achievable through operation parameter’s optimization is in the range of about 5-30%. This is especially true for non-residential buildings. Today, usually there is no continuous evaluation of the building performance in order to reach or maintain an energy-efficient operation. As a result the buildings performance, even in cases where an accurate envelope and plants design is often poor and does not represent the optimum in energy and economic terms, regardless an optimal envelope and service system design. A continuous commissioning process is seen as a prerequisite for the persistence of high energy performance of buildings. Its practical implementation is constrained by a lack of data and cost. The project Building EQ (formally EPBD-cx) has the scope to develop methodologies and tools that can be used for continuous commissioning and optimization of non-domestic buildings using gathered data from the certification process according to the EPBD. The emphasis will be on feasibility and cost-effectiveness related to building-practice. The project started at the beginning of 2007 and its duration is 36 months. In this paper the phases and the first Building EQ steps are shown; the participant’s contribution, the set of non-residential demonstration buildings selected for the monitoring activities, the modelling techniques, will be described. An analysis of the EPBD application in participant countries will be carried out. Overall a description of strategies and commissioning procedure for the building considered will be summarized.