European energy policies call for an increased share of renewable energy sources and a more active role of the energy consumer. This is facilitated by, amongst others, buildings becoming energy flexible hubs, supporting smart energy grids with demand response strategies. While there is abundant technical research in this field, the related business and policy development is less well documented. This research scopes existing policy programmes and identifies opportunities and barriers to business development supporting energy flexible buildings. Using examples from seven European countries, this work reviews influencing niche management factors such as existing policy instruments, business development cases and identified stakeholder concerns, using literature research, narrative analysis and stakeholder research.National policy pathways show many differences but confirm that European buildings might become active players in the energy market, by providing energy storage, demand response and/or shifts in the use of energy sources. Slow sustained business development for energy flexibility services was mainly identified in the retail industry, and for energy service companies and aggregators. The direct involvement of end users in energy flexible buildings is still difficult. Stakeholders call for policy improvement, especially concerning the development of flexible energy tariffs, supporting incentives, awareness raising and more stakeholder-targeted business development.
The high-performance renovation of the thermal envelope with prefabricated façade modules and with prefabricated modules for the building services represents a sustainable alternative to the established composite heat insulation system. In the frame of an Austrian research project (e80^3-Buildings -renovation concepts towards plus-energy building standard with prefabricated active roof and facade elements, integrated building services and grid integration; funded by the Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology in the frame of the 'building of tomorrow plus' program; retrieved March 27, 2014, from http:// www.hausderzukunft.at/results.html/id7005), the boundary conditions and the energy concept for a plus-energy building were developed. Furthermore, prototypes of prefabricated insulated façade modules and modules for the building services were planned, constructed and tested and afterwards implemented in an Austrian demonstration project. A comprehensive monitoring of the residential building is performed and quality assurance of the concepts and the implementation is introduced.
IntroductionThe change of the buildings from energy consumers to energy generators calls for a new orientation of the functions and tasks of the different passive and active building components. A plusenergy building in renovation can only be achieved if the conception of the thermal envelope and of the energy system are each optimised but also harmonised to one another.The renovation of the building, presented in this article, was part of three applied research projects. These are the previously mentioned e80^3-Buildings, the Austrian research project low_vent.com 1 and a research project of the province of Styria. 2 Within these research projects and the building renovation, the following research tools were used: criteria catalogue for the assessment of the renovation potential towards plus-energy buildings (Geier Knotzer, & Venus, 2011), a plus-energy balance tool that was developed within the frame of the research project e80^3, TRNSYS 17, a national energy performance calculation tool and various building physics calculation tools.The project should demonstrate how the implementation of innovative technical and organisational solutions can contribute to develop an Austrian multi-storey residential building from the 1960s from
Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (nZEBs) will be the standard for new constructions in Europe from 2019 (public buildings) and 2021 (private buildings). Even though several technologies for realizing nZEBs are already available, their market penetration in Europe is still low. This can be ascribed to both high initial investment for nZEBs and limited adequate business models for several stakeholders along the buildings’ lifecycle. The aim of this paper is to present and analyse examples of existing business models for nZEBs in different European countries. A broad overview of these business models, accompanied by evidence of their key factors and strengths is essential for developing new business models that ensure a cost-optimal nZEB implementation and adequate profitability for all stakeholders involved. Therefore, at first business models of different European markets and nZEB lifecycle phases are searched for and described in a profile-like manner. Secondly, the key factors and strengths of each business model are pointed out. In the end, a cross-comparison of the business models is done according to some key parameters, such as involved stakeholders and covered life cycle phases. This knowledge serves as a basis for the development of innovative nZEB business models. The work presented in this paper is developed in the frame of EU funded project CRAVEzero – Cost Reduction and market Acceleration for Viable nearly zero-Energy buildings which is co-funded by the Intelligent Energy Europe Programme within the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme of the European Union.
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