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R&d Project

Air pollution

Buildings

Energy efficiency in buildings

+2

Energy-efficient renovation of buildings, while maintaining utility and architectural value

28. June 2016

Solution provider

Develco Products

Develco Products is a B2B company providing a market-ready, white label IoT platform to solution providers within the fields of security, care, and energy management. Develco Products offers a range of wireless gateways, sensors and alarms, smart plugs, smart relays, and meter interfaces.

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Denmark aims for a CO2 neutral society by 2050. This ambitious goal cannot be obtained without a drastically reduced energy use for construction and operations of buildings. Buildings are responsible for 40-50 % of the total European energy consumption today and it has been found that the greatest energy saving potential lies in the renovation of the existing building mass.

Cost-efficient energy reduction
It is the declared goal of Innovation Fund Denmark’s societal partnership on energy-efficient building renovations that a sustainable and cost-efficient energy reduction of 50 % is demonstrated in this project. This calls for the identification and quantification of added value to energy renovation that can justify more extensive energy saving measures.

The largest potential for energy savings lies in the re-insulation of the building envelope. The transformation towards a more energy-efficient building mass will thus dramatically affect the built environment. Hence, the question of articulating the architectural consequences and derived potentials of this transformation are an urgent matter if the energy savings are not to be realized by a uniform technical cladding which devaluates the building.

Vision of ReVALUE
There is great potential for reducing energy consumption in existing buildings. Exploiting this potential is possibile when choosing cost-effective and energy-efficient solutions every time the buildings are renovated. That does not mean compromising on the quality and architectural values that make the buildings special. On the contrary: energy renovation should be a means of improving and developing buildings to meet the needs and challenges of the future and of making home-owners and tenants less vulnerable to rising energy costs in the future.

Personal and societal values in realizing energy saving potentials
The main purpose of buildings is to provide healthy and comfortable environments for human activities. People spend 80-90 % of their life indoor and about 16 hours every day in their dwelling.

The impacts that people are exposed to in the indoor climate are therefore of great importance for their health and comfort. Current research and practice have shown that people too often are unsatisfied with the buildings they use and that complaints concerning health and comfort are common.

But research also connects good indoor climate to the better quality of life, reduction of health care cost, less absence due to sickness and superior work. Consequently, there is a significant and unexploited personal and societal value in realizing energy saving potentials with special attention to “the human factor”.

Develco Products offered the research project the companies knowledge and experience with energy management, including the know-how of sensors, gateways and data representation.

Towards identifying a cost-efficient solution in terms of energy performance
The overall objective of the ReVALUE project is to develop and demonstrate the validity of a generic renovation assessment method. This method will allow client and decision makers in renovation projects to identify a cost-efficient solution in terms of energy performance as well as create utility and architectural values by means of energy renovation, refurbishment and transformation in the built environment.

  • Innovation Fund:
    The project is funded by the Innovation Fund with a total of 15 million DKK, in the community partnerships - Energy-efficient renovation.
  • Aarhus University:
    Department of Engineering at Aarhus University is the scientific rigor of the project on energy and climate, architecture and construction processes