Policies for energy efficiency requirements in buildings have become more stringent according to EU2020 goals. Despite policy regulations, requirements for energy efficiency are not met in many new buildings. Some of the reasons for this energy performance gap are related to the building process. The aim with this paper is to describe a purposed method for quality assurance of sustainable buildings according to energy efficiency. The proposed method is called ByggaE, where ‘Bygga’ is the Swedish word for ‘build’ and E is the first letter in ‘energy efficient’. It is a tool intended to lower the energy performance gap related to the building process by guiding the client and providers through the process to fulfill goals. The essence of ByggaE is the formulation of requirements by the client and the working process of identifying, handling and following up critical constructions and key issues. This working process involves all participants in the building project by using appropriate quality guidelines and checklists for documentation, communication and verification. ByggaE is a step forward ensuring that the building fulfills the defined functions and that conscious decisions are taken when goals have to be changed during the building project. The next steps are to ensure the usefulness of the method in practice by more testing and to spread knowledge about the method.

construction process to meet H2020 requirements. Indeed, retrofitting current buildings is a major issue to be addressed. An analysis of the composition of the housing stock is needed to develop any sort of improving action in these buildings. New energy policies that may appear in the following years could benefit from detailed information of the current state of existing residential buildings.

The present paper is aimed to show a protocol to increase and implement the knowledge on social housing current state in southern Spain for further passive energy retrofitting interventions, which could allow for an improvement in indoor conditions too. To this aim, a top-down protocol is proposed to improve comfort conditions in social housing. A first phase corresponding to the creation of a GIS database is used to analyse social housing from an urban scale. Typologies and constructive characterization, energy assessment and a statistical approach is developed. This will allow for the acknowledgement of the most representative social dwellings in the city. A second phase, which corresponds to a dwelling scale, is thought to assess energy performance and the evolution of indoor environmental parameters in the previously selected dwellings, by in situ data measures and records, and the energy gradation of the dwellings by means of energy simulation software tools. This analysis will serve to propose integrated passive-energy solutions to retrofit thermal envelopes and to improve comfort conditions in social housing. The mentioned protocol is applied to the social housing stock that was built between 1950 and 1980 in Córdoba, a city from the south of Spain with Mediterranean weather conditions.

This study presents the development of a real-scale latent heat thermal energy storage (TES) device based on an air-PCM (phase change material) heat exchanger. The device uses the outdoor ambient temperature difference between night and day to refresh the indoor air and shift or completely avoid the use of air-conditioning in air-cooling in the building sector. The design is based on an extensive set of numerical simulations, performed by the commercial software ANSYS Fluent, focused on a parametric study allowing to identify the optimum value of different design parameters in order to have 10 hours of temperature shift. The numerical simulations were supported by experimental measurements done with a small-scale test rig. Additionally, the thermal response of the PCM to cooling and heating was also studied in a controlled temperature and humidity environment.

The consumption of material, energy, and water resources is inextricably linked to population growth with a unique impact on urban areas, especially in light of significant investments in infrastructure to support urban development. Urban metabolism is becoming popular as it provides a framework accounting the mass and energy flows through a city. An urban metabolism study was conducted to estimate the inputs and outputs of energy and pollutants from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The objective of this study was to determine the energy consumption of Riyadh using locally generated data from 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2012 and analysing the temporal trends of energy consumption and associated environmental impact. The socioeconomic and biophysical characteristics of Riyadh are well represented in its metabolism indicators. The high growth rate in population along with urban expansion has resulted in an increase in energy consumption. Riyadh has seen an increase in energy consumption at a rate of about 6% per annum. On a per capita basis, preliminary results show that the energy consumption increased by 31% from 1996 to 2012. Also, per capita CO2 emissions have increased by the same percentage. Results also show increasing mobile energy consumption from 20k TJ in 1986 to 157k TJ in 2012, which points to Riyadh’s inefficient urban form. The study findings highlight the importance for developing effective policies for improving the use of resources.

The article considers the ways of increasing the sustainability of the energy sector in an unstable environment and technology modernization that implies radical structural transformations in the configuration of energy systems. The authors show that power engineering should be given a special emphasis in this context because it is the most stable branch of the energy sector in terms of its vulnerability to crisis. The article suggests that the processes of electrification that further technological progress and increase the innovative potential of a region’s economy should be viewed as a driver forging a ‘smart partnership’ of power engineering and manufacturing. The authors analyze positive effects and price risks that emerge in the course of the implementation of electrification programs and use the analysis as a basis for their recommendations for developing regional electric power systems and effective relationships between utilities and consumers.

Canadian cultural and consumer trends have established high household energy consumption rates, as compared to other first world nations. This study examines the correlation between cultural influence, occupant behaviour, and the resulting effectiveness of optional or mandatory energy efficiency strategies in Canadian homes. Energy efficiency has historically been approached from a design and construction perspective; however, monitoring and verification during a post-occupancy period has gone largely undocumented. Given the lack of data, the effectiveness of any policy or standard towards sustainability is difficult to quantify. In two case studies, located in Calgary, AB (Canada), the impacts of housing typology, construction methodology and occupant behaviour were researched to collect post-occupancy energy use data. The results of the first case study demonstrate a +300% variation in consumption rates when comparing same unit type, location, construction and solar photovoltaic array. A second case study examines a home designed to be Net-Zero Energy (NZE), which is coupled with renewable technology and subsequently monitored post-occupancy, then compared to modelled/predicted loads. A third case, which strives to reduce both operational and embodied energy pre- and post-occupancy, is examined to illustrate the pre-occupancy energy required by various standard and alternative construction materials. This paper aims to provide context and validation of energy efficient design, construction, standards/codes, and in conjunction with occupant behaviour or cultural patterns of consumption. The results strive to identify which strategies may ultimately have more impact on national goals of energy efficiency and carbon reduction, and whether or not top down policy can be an effective way of managing energy use in households.

Concepts related to ‘green health’ and ‘green hospitals’ are rapidly changing and varying their scopes towards wider perspectives. Environmental health considers the natural, built and social environments, implying a better understanding of the way they impact on health, and accepting that the built environment plays an important role in it. On the one hand, impacts of building design, construction, operation and management of hospitals on environment and health are currently accepted. On the other hand, hospitals are complex systems, where changes are neither fast nor easily performed. In order to achieve a green healthcare system, a deep knowledge of its strengths and weaknesses is needed, as well as of the internal dynamics. According to this target, our research focuses on the identification of opportunities for improving the existing health facilities according to the new concepts related to green hospitals. We deal with the study of various aspects as the site and its environment, better access, efficient management of resources (particularly water and energy), waste reduction, use of renewable and low emission materials, as well as all factors in design that can improve the users’ wellness. Some decisions must be taken at the early phases of planning, design, and construction, while other can be reached when hospitals are already operating. In addition, some decisions affect the buildings and their sites (the ecological footprint of the facility), while other extend to the neighbouring communities (districts, and municipal infrastructures and services) in order to diminish the risks, and to protect natural resources. Decisions can even affect wider ranges (as supplies and purchasing, for instance) and can help the efficient management while reducing the environment degradation. The proposed case study is University Hospital Príncipe de Asturias in Alcalá de Henares.