New municipal service buildings must be energy effective, and cost-optimality is one of the criteria for selecting the suitable energy performance improvement measures. A daycare building in a cold climate was studied by means of simulation-based, multiobjective optimization. Using a genetic algorithm, both target energy use and life-cycle cost of the selected measures were minimized. It was found that extensive insulation of the building envelope is not a cost-optimal method to reduce the daycare building energy use. Improving energy efficiency of the ventilation system, utilizing solar energy on-site and employing a light control strategy are preferable ways of improving the building energy performance. Ground-source heat pump is a more cost-optimal heating system for the daycare building than district heating. The cost-optimal sizing of the heat pump is small, only 28% of the required maximum heating power.
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