Next-Generation Energy Performance Certificates, What novel implementation do we need?

Abstract

Energy performance certificates are being utilized through the European Union Member States to document and asses the energy performance of the building stock, while they are used as measures to investigate and adopt policies that would lower the final energy consumption and environmental footprint. After several years of implementation, the current EPC schemes have enlighten the domain energy efficiency in the building sector, but at the same time they have been identified with several challenges and deficiencies that deteriorate the quality of the results. This study performed under the H2020 project “Next-generation Dynamic Digital EPCs for Enhanced Quality and User Awareness (D^2EPC)“, aims to analyze the quality and weaknesses of the current EPC schemes and aspires to identify the technical challenges that currently exist, setting the grounds for the next generation dynamic EPCs. The present work reveals that current EPCs schemes are based on a cradle-to-gate rationale, completing their mission after the certificate to the building user, overlooking the user’s behavior and the actual energy performance of the building that might change dynamically within time. In this study, the idea of the dynamic EPCs is introduced, a certificate that will allow the monitoring of the actual performance of buildings and the users’ behavior profiles on a regular basis. The introduction of novel indicators and the integration of BIM and GIS are also discussed.