The research group ARC Engineering and Architecture La Salle from Barcelona (Spain) and the Energy Efficiency Centre of Jožef Stefan Institute from Ljubljana (Slovenia) are organizing the 1st Workshop on “Innovative Methods and Tools to Facilitate the Implementation of Energy Efficiency Strategies and Action Plans - Energy Performance Assessment and Building Certification" on 31st January and 1st February 2019, at La Salle Campus in Barcelona.
TIMEPAC-2019 will offer researchers, policy makers, ESCOs, energy consultants, and other professionals involved in the energy efficiency and assessment of buildings, the opportunity to exchange ideas and knowledge and share research outputs and best practices. The meeting will also provide participants with an excellent occasion to explore paths for future collaborations.
Today, it is vitally important to improve the building assessment process by integrating multiple data structures and sources, such as energy certification and monitoring data. While there have been great improvements in the accessibility of the information contained in the Energy Performance Certificates, making it available to the public is not sufficient. The information available should be enriched with other data sources (consumption, socioeconomic, etc.) and processed with advanced analysis tools in order to facilitate decision-making to improve the building stock. It is also clear that data accuracy and availability are vitally important issues in energy performance assessment and building certification. Furthermore, standards and regulations on the collection and integration of building performance certification and assessment data must be agreed upon and enforced. In this regard, establishing common standards and frameworks, such as the recently announced voluntary reporting framework Level(s) is fundamental to provide quality information to the stakeholders involved in building renovation.
This workshop will contribute to providing a better understanding of the needs and peculiarities of EU countries which are all working towards the collective goal of meeting energy efficiency and renewable energy targets by setting up common methodologies and guidelines for the energy performance assessment in buildings which can be replicated in other member states. Research challenges focused on achieving accuracy of energy performance certificates, as compared with real energy consumption data, will be addressed. To meet these challenges, we will discuss innovative approaches for energy performance assessment in buildings and supporting mechanisms that will enable a more efficient use of existing data, technologies and services and promote environmental awareness and consumer engagement in energy efficiency. Additionally, the workshop will help participants to identify themes and partners for potential future cooperation in the preparation of H2020 research proposals on the topic of energy performance assessment and certification in buildings.
