Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ALDREN (ALliance for Deep RENovation in buildings (ALDREN)Implementing the European Common Voluntary Certification Scheme, as back-bone along the whole deep renovation process)

Teaser

To reach the European energy and climate objectives, the refurbishment of existing building stocks towards the deep renovation and NZEB levels is to be dramatically accelerated, in terms of both annual renovation rate and quality. The ALDREN objectives are to achieve higher...

Summary

To reach the European energy and climate objectives, the refurbishment of existing building stocks towards the deep renovation and NZEB levels is to be dramatically accelerated, in terms of both annual renovation rate and quality.
The ALDREN objectives are to achieve higher renovation rates and better renovation quality by overcoming market barriers and preparing the ground for investment.
The ALDREN coordinate and support actions bring together in ALDREN Alliance the main stakeholders involved in building renovation to specify the needs of the non-residential building sector and to organize the pilot use of the ALDREN procedure.
Energy performance assessments should be made: comparable over Europe, more reliable through the articulation of both calculated and actual consumptions, linked to financing and overall building assets valuation, consistent with the preservation and improvement of comfort and indoor air quality, more dynamic to engage property owners on deep renovation plans coupled with their buildings renovation needs and own expectations.
The ALDREN project answer a market request for common reliable tools by using the European Voluntary Certification Scheme (EVCS) policy instrument (EPBD Art. 11(9)) and by completing it to reach the needed holistic approach for deep renovation. The ALDREN overarching outcome will be the infrastructure to enable market transformation by deep renovation driven by the business case and able to directly support the EU policies (EED, EPBD).
The excellence of the ALDREN solutions offered are:
1) A harmonized Energy performance rating based on the European Voluntary Certification Scheme (EVCS) verified by measurements to increase comparability, confidence and market uptake by standardized solutions (CEN / ISO standards under mandat M/480);
2) Associating low energy renovation with high quality indoor environments to trigger renovation and to promote health and comfort;
3) Aligning market recognition of high quality with enhanced building value by financial tools and capacity building. Establishing business case for deep renovation to motivate private investment.
These solutions will be integrated in a consistent, common way in a building renovation passport (including a renovation roadmap) to ensure the results and effective financing also in case of step by step renovation.
The impact on energy savings during the project is estimated at 30 GWh and at 1000 GWh/a after the project.
The implementation and dissemination of the ALDREN procedure will use existing channels of environmental scheme operators for the pilot phase, but also for further dissemination.

Work performed

To achieve higher renovation rates and better renovation quality in the non-residential building sector, ALDREN estimates that to overcome the market barriers a holistic and common European approach is needed. Holistic is not only related to the building, systems, different fields of competences (e.g. energy, health + well-being) but also to the market actors because nobody can trigger renovation alone. There is a need for a common language between these different actors.
Therefore, the following work has been performed since the beginning of the project.
• Bring together, within a European Alliance, the main stakeholders
In several meetings fruitful exchanges with different stakeholder groups (developers, finance, certification, architects, designers, construction, politics) took place. These meetings confirmed that the ALDREN main topics cover well the interest of the stakeholders.
• European voluntary energy performance certificate, Energy rating & targets
A common scale and energy rating have been worked out which are based not on energy consumption but on the energy performance related to cost optimality. Numerical values for the reference points of the scale have been defined for hotels and offices. To allow EU wide comparability only one reference point for each of three climate zones are proposed.
• Addressing health & wellbeing
To document the quality of indoor environment the TAIL index was invented. TAIL integrates the four major components defining indoor environmental quality into one index. TAIL stands for T= thermal environment, A= acoustic environment, I=indoor air quality and L= luminous (visual) environment. Twelve parameters were selected based on different criteria including feasibility. The main references for these quality levels are EN 16798-1:2018, World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines for Indoor and Ambient Air Quality and Level(s).
• Linking EVC, reliability, health + well-being to the financial valuation
One of the main barriers hindering deep energy renovation is due to the gap existing between an engineer’s approach of sustainability topics in buildings and a financial analyst’s interest.
The methodology worked out consists in additional financial indicators to be added in the building passport and EVC as well as guidance (“protocol”) on how to calculate these indicators and how to use all this information to better integrate energy, health and comfort topics into asset valuation, energy related investment, financial valuation, risk appraisal and renovation decisions.
• Rendering of the collected data and results in a building renovation passport (BRP)
The ALDREN BRP is composed by two main elements: the ALDREN BuildLog , the ALDREN RenoMap. In the ALDREN BuildLog a data model has been defined to structure and capitalize all these building information (from the EVCS information needs and collection).
• Dissemination, communication and market uptake
Training contents should help to bring the ALDREN procedures into practice. The training program has been organized in modules and two training sessions took already place.
Communication and dissemination activities have started for the promotion and communication of the project results to the target groups, including a Dissemination and Communication plan) and the creation of the projects’ corporate identity and brand. The project’s website has been launched (see link hereafter).

Final results

With the holistic common EU wide approach and the common language the ambition of ALDREN is to become “the” European quality benchmark of buildings.
The partners of the project place significant emphasis on dissemination activities. In the ALDREN project it is estimated that dissemination activities include policy support and the increase of business skills. To successfully implement ALDREN, the consortium addresses the sustainability of outputs in the long-term (business case for impact after the end of the project). External dissemination activities of the project’s partners shall be targeted to relevant stakeholders, target groups, end users, SMEs, innovative start-ups, initiatives and the public who will have direct and indirect benefits from the exploitation of the project’s results at short- and long-term basis.
The dissemination plan of the ALDREN results is comparable to a snowball effect. During the project, the ALDREN Alliance and pilot implementation of ALDREN procedures on real buildings create together the snowball. Then the snowball will be launched in a well-defined area (the non-residential building sector) with well identified potential users to make the snowball bigger.

Website & more info

More info: https://aldren.eu/.