STRATEGIES FOR THE ENERGY RETROFITTING OF SOCIAL HOUSING THROUGHOUT EUROPE

Abstract

Nobel energy retrofitting strategies for social housing buildings are presented in this paper, which attempt to reduce their energy demand and enable a low carbon footprint consumption. Both passive and active approaches are applied to a building archetype under 7 representative climates and constructive properties in Europe. On the one hand, simulation results show that passive renovation of buildings through high efficiency envelopes and decentralized ventilation systems would lead to savings from the 69% to the 87% of the required heating demand. Additionally, the cooling demand is reduced up to 32%, although it increases slightly in cold climates due to the addition of insulation. On the other hand, the active trigeneration system includes parabolic trough solar collectors, ORC based cogeneration, adsorption chiller, and a biomass boiler as backup, which reaches a maximum efficiency of 59% in the best scenario. Results show that, a join exploitation of proposed strategies, would mean primary energy savings up to 38% in the worst case, and 61% in the best one. Regarding CO2 emissions, up to 85% reductions are achieved in the seven considered European climates. Finally, analyzing the costs, it is shown that even in the worst case, the energy bills would be reduced in 62%. These results reveal that, the strategies proposed in this paper, depict a feasible way to achieve nZEB while, at the same time, tackling the energy poverty problem that residents in social housing suffer along Europe.