open house vol.39 no.2.pdf · simon siggelsten, birgitta nordquist, stefan olander energy saving...
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BOARD OF EDITORS
The journal of an association of institutes concerned with the quality of built environment.The publishing framework is shaped around the forces which act on built environment,which maintain, change and transform it. The content consists of articles which deal withthese issues and in particular with responsive, self-sustaining and re-usable environ-ments which have the capacity to respond to change, provide user choice and value formoney.
w w w . o p e n h o u s e - i n t . c o m openhouse
openhouse
Dr.Iftekhar Ahmed, RMIT University, Australia.
Dr. Zainab F. Ali, University of Damman, SaudiArabia.
Dr. Robert Brown, University of Westminster,London, Great Britain.
Prof.Marta Calzolaretti, Housing Lab, SapienzaUniversita di Roma, Italy.
Dr. German T. Cruz, Ball State UniversityMuncie, USA.
Carla Corbin, Department of LandscapeArchitecture, Ball State University, USA.
Ype Cuperus, Delft University of TechnologyDelft, The Netherlands.
Dr. Ayona Datta, University of Leeds, UK.
Dr.Md Nasir Daud, University of Malaya,Malaysia.
Forbes Davidson, Institute of Housing & UrbanDevelopment Studies, Rotterdam, TheNetherlands.
Diane Diacon, Building and Social HousingFoundation, Coalville, Great Britain.
Prof. Yurdanur Dulgeroglu-Yuksel,Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey.
Prof. Jin-Ho Park, Inha University, Korea
Prof. Bruce Frankel, Ball State University, USA.
Prof. Avi Friedman, McGill University, Montreal,Canada.
Dr. Ahmed Abu Al Haija, PhiladelphiaUniversity, Eng. & Arch. Dep.t, Jordan.
Prof. Keith Hilton, Mansle, France.
Dr. Karim Hadjri, University of Central lan-cashire, UK.
Prof. Nabeel Hamdi, Professor Emeritus,Oxford Brookes University, UK.
Dr. Sebnem Önal Hoskara, EasternMediterranean University, Northern Cyprus.
Prof Anthony D C Hyland,Consultant in Architectural Conservationand Heritage Management, Durham, UK
Dr. Mahmud Mohd Jusan, Faculty of Built Environment, Universiti TeknologiMalaysia (UTM).
Ripin Kalra, University of Westminster, and .(WSPimc), London.
Dr. Stephen Kendall, Ball StateUniversity Muncie, Indiana, USA.
Prof. Bob Koester, Ball State University Muncie,USA.
Prof. Roderick J. Lawrence, University ofGeneva, Geneva, Switzerland.
Dr. Fuad Mallick, BRAC University, Bangladesh.
Prof. Andrea Martin-Chavez, UniversidadAutonoma Metropolitana, Mexico.
Dr. Magda Mostafa, Associate Professor, TheAmerican University in Cairo, Egypt
Babar Mumtaz, DPU, University CollegeLondon, London, UK.
Geoffery Payne, GPA Associates London, UK
Dr. Sule Tasli Pektas, Bilkent University, Turkey.
Prof. Gulsun Saglamer, Istanbul TechnicalUniversity, Istanbul, Turkey.
Dr. Mark Napier, Urban LandMark, Pretoria,South Africa.
Dr. Masa Noguchi, MEARU, Mackintosh Schoolof Architecture, UK.
Prof. Ibrahim Numan, Fatih Sultan Mehmet
University, Turkey.
Dr. Yara Saifi, Al Quds University, Jerusalem,
Palestine.
Prof. Paola Somma, University of Venice, Italy.
Prof. Jia Beisi, University of Hong Kong.
Dr. Peter Kellett, University of Newcastle upon
Tyne, Great Britain.
Dr. Omar Khattab, University of Kuwait.
Dr. Levente Mályusz, Budapest University of
Technology and Economics (BME), Hungary.
Prof. Amos Rapoport, University of Wisconsin
at Milwaukee, USA.
Prof. Seiji Sawada, Meiji University, Tokyo,
Japan.
Dr. Florian Steinberg, Asian Development
Bank, The Philippines.
Dr. Quazi M Mahtab uz Zaman,
Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, UK
Prof. H. J Visscher, OTB, Delft Univertsity of
Technology, Delft, The Netherlands.
Patrick Wakely, Professor Emeritus, University
College London, UK.
Dr. Christine Wamsler, University of
Manchester, UK and University of Lund,
Sweden.
: Yonca Hurol, Eastern Mediterranean University, Mersin 10, Turkey.: Esra Can, Emre Akbil, Eastern Mediterranean University Mersin 10 - Turkey. [email protected]: C. Punton, P.O Box 74, Gateshead,Tyne & Wear, NE9 5UZ, Great Britain. [email protected]: The Urban International Press, P.O Box 74, Gateshead, Tyne and Wear NE9 5UZ, Great Britain.: Printed by Eastern Mediterranean University Print House, Gazimagusa, Mersin 10, Turkey: By courtesy of Velina Mirincheva, Florian Wiedmann and Ashraf M. Salama in “The Spatial Development
Potentials of Business Districts in Doha:” Figure 2 Page18.: Emmanuel Tibung Chenyi, Eastern Mediteranian University, Mersin 10, Turkey. [email protected]
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Aims
Open House International
The Open House International Association (OHIA) aims
to communicate, disseminate and exchange housing and
planning information. The focus of this exchange is on
tools, methods and processes which enable the various
professional disciplines to understand the dynamics of
housing and so contribute more effectively to it.
To achieve its aims, the OHIA organizes and co-ordi-
nates a number of activities which include the publication
of a quarterly journal, and, in the near future, an interna-
tional seminar and an annual competition. The
Association has the more general aim of seeking to
improve the quality of built environment through encour-
aging a greater sharing of decision-making by ordinary
people and to help develop the necessary institutional
frameworks which will support the local initiatives of peo-
ple in the building process.
The journal of an association of institutes and individuals
concerned with housing, design and development in the
built environment. Theories, tools and practice with spe-
cial emphasis on the local scale.
Delft University of TechnologyDepartment of Housing Quality and Process Innovation OTB
Research Institute of Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies
Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
(Henk Visscher) [email protected] www.otb.tudelft.nl
McGill UniversitySchool of Architecture, Macdonald Harrington Building
Centre for Minimum Cost Housing Studies, 815, Sherbrook
Street West. Montreal, PQ. Canada H3A 2K6.
(Avi Friedman)[email protected]
www.homes.mcgill.ca
Ball State UniversityCollege of Architecture & Planning, Muncie, Indiana, 47306,
USA. (Stephen Kendall) [email protected]
www.bsu.edu/cap
The Development Planning UnitUniversity College London. 34, Tavistock Square London
WC1H 9EZ. (Caren Levy) [email protected]
www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu
HousingLabDipartimento di Architettura, Ateneo Federato delle Scienze
Umane delle Arti e dell'Ambiente, SAPIENZA Università di
Roma, Roma, Italy. (Marta Calzolaretti)
[email protected] http:w3.uniroma1.it/housinglab
The Glasgow School of ArtMackintosh School of Archirecture MEARU, 176 Renfrew
Street Glasgow G3 6RQ. Great Britain
(Masa Noguchi) [email protected]
www.gsa.ac.uk
Budapest University of Technology & Econ. (BME)Faculty of Architecture Budapest, Muegyetem rkp. 3.
1111 Hungary. (Levente Malyusz) [email protected]
www.bme.hu
Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM)Resource Development Division, Perpustakaan Sultanah
Zanariah, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) 81310 Skudai
Johor, Malaysia. (Anuar Talib) [email protected]
http://portal.psz.utm.my/psz/
Philadelphia University,Engineering & Architecture Department, Faculty of
Engineering, P.O Box 1, Jordan. (Ahmed Abu Al-Haija)
www.philadelphia.edu.jo/content/view/448/590/
University of Malaya,Faculty of Built Environment, 50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
(Md Nasir Daud) [email protected]
http://www.fbe.um.edu.my
Ajman University of Science & TechnologyAjman, P. O. Box 346, UAE. United Arab Emirates
(Jihad Awad) [email protected]
www.ajman.ac.ae/austweb/index87ec.html?catid=46&langid=2
Qatar UniversityQatar University Library, Aquisitons Department,
P.O Box 2713, Doha, Qatar. (Amrita Mckinney)
[email protected] www.qu.edu.qa
BRAC University,Department of Architecture, Dhaka, Bangladesh,
(Fuad H Mallick) [email protected] www.bracu.ac.bd
Universidad Del Rosario, Calle 14 No. 6-25, Bogotá, Colombia. (Janneth Espitia)
[email protected] www.urosario.edu.co
Birzeit University Main LibraryRamallah, West Bank, P.O.Box: "14", Birzeit,
Palestine(Taghgreed Shihadeh) [email protected]
www.birzeit.edu
Inha University, Department of Architecture, Inha University,
Incheon, Korea. (Jin-Ho Park) [email protected]
www.d-lab.k
Director & Editor-in-Chief
Nicholas Wilkinson, RIBA, Eastern Mediterranean University,
Northern Cyprus.DPU Associate,
University College London, UK.
Collaborating Editor
Dr. Ashraf M. Salama,Dept. of Architecture &
Urban Planning, Qatar
University, Qatar.
Email: [email protected]
Web Editor
Emmanuel Tibung ChenyiEastern Mediterranean Univ.
Dept of Arch. Via mersin 10. TR
Email:[email protected]
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Contents
EDITORIAL: Henk Visscher
NEGOTIATING GREEN RETROFITTING STANDARDS IN DANISH URBAN RENEWAL - THE CASE OF COPENHAGEN
Lars A. Engberg
ENERGY COSTS, RESIDENTIAL MOBILITY, AND SEGREGATION IN A SHRINKING CITY.
Großmann Katrin, Buchholz Johan, Buchmann Carsten, Hedtke Christoph, Höhnke Carolin, Schwarz Nina
‘DEAL OR NO DEAL?’: ASSESSING THE UK’S NEW GREEN DEAL Louise Reid
UPGRADING ENERGY EFFICIENT HOUSING AND CREATING JOBS:IT WORKS BOTH WAYS
Frits Meijer, Henk Visscher
ENERGY POLICY DEVELOPMENTS IN THE DUTCH NON-PROFIT HOUSING SECTORS
Nico Nieboer, Ad Straub, Henk Visscher
ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN FRENCH SOCIAL HOUSING RENOVATIONS VIA DESIGN-BUILD-MAINTAIN
Tadeo Baldiri Salcedo Rahola, Ad Straub, Angela Ruiz Lázaro,Yves Galiègue
ANALYSIS OF ENERGY-EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTS IN SINGLE-FAMILY DWELLINGS IN CONCEPCION, CHILE Rodrigo Garcia Alvarado, Jaime Soto, Cristian Muñoz,
Ariel Bobadilla, Rodrigo Herrera, Waldo Bustamante
ANALYSIS OF THE ACCURACY OF INDIVIDUAL HEAT METERING AND CHARGING
Simon Siggelsten, Birgitta Nordquist, Stefan Olander
ENERGY SAVING POLICIES FOR HOUSING BASED ON WRONG ASSUMPTIONS?Henk Visscher, Dasa Majcen and Laure Itard
BOOK REVIEWkhan Gunce
Open House International has been selected for coverage by EBSCO Publishing, the ELSEVIER BibliographicDatabase Scopus and all products of THOMSON ISI index bases, SSCI, A&HCI,CC/S&BS and CC/A&H The journalis also listed on the following Architectural index lists: RIBA, ARCLIB, AVERY and EKISTICS. Open House Internationalis online for subscribers and gives limited access for non-subscribers at www.openhouse-int.com
NEXT ISSUE: VOL. 39.NO.3 2014: POST DISASTER RECONSTRUCTION.Guest Editors: Dr. Esther Charlesworth, Associate Professor and Dr Iftekar Ahmed, Research Fellow HumanitarianArchitecture Research Bureau RMIT University, Australia.
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open house in te rna t ional j une 2014 vo l .39 no .2THEME ISSUE covering Danish Urban Renewal, Design-Build and Maintain, Energy Costs, Energy Policy, Individual HeatMetering and Charging, Social Housing Renovations and Sustainable Development.
Guest Editor: Dr. Henk Visscher, OTB Research for the Built Environment, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Envornment,Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands. E-Mail: H.J. [email protected]
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Previous Issues
Edited by Nicholas Wilkinson RIBA, Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus.DPU Associate, University College London, [email protected]
Guest Editors::Prof. Ashraf M. Salama & Dr. Florian Wiedmann Department of Architecture and Urban Planning,College of Engineering, Qatar University, Doha,Qatar E-mail: [email protected]
Editorial: Nicholas WilkinsonSustainable Urbanism: Moving Past Neo-Modernist & Neo-Traditionalist HousingStrategies. Alazar G Ejigu & Tigran Haas* Sustainable Architecture in Rural Yayla Settlements.Sıdıka Çetin, Ayse Betul Gokarslan The Layered Dependency Structure Matrix for Managing Collaborative DesignProcesses. Şule Taşlı PektaşComparative Study of Courtyard Housing using Feng ShuiAfet Çeliker, Banu Tevfikler Çavuşoğlu, Zehra ÖngülDemolition versus Deconstruction: Impacts of Fenestration Disposal in BuildingRenovation Projects. Soofia Tahira Elias-OzkanA Review of Lofts as Housing in Istanbul. Serpil Özker Housing Cooperatives in the Palestinian Territories: Development and CurrentPractice. Shadi Sami GhadbanAttitudes towards Urban Open Spaces: Equating Human Needs on Open SpacePlanning. Melasutra Md Dali, Safiah Muhammad Yusoff, Puteri Haryati IbrahimLandscape and Sustainability: Three Residential College Buildings in the TropicsAdi Ainurzaman Jamaludin, Nila Keumala, Ati Rosemary Mohd Ariffi , HazreenaHussein
Vol. 39 No. 1 2014
open house international
OPEN ISSUE:
Vol. 38 No. 4 2013
open house international
Theme Issue: ‘Unveiling Contemporary Urban Transformationsin the Arabian PeninsulaDynamics of Global Flows, MultipleModernities, and People-Environment Interactions.
Editorial: Ashraf M. Salama and Florian WiedmannManufacturing The Image Of Doha: From the Public Face of Architecture to thePrinted Media. Ashraf M. Salama The Spatial Development Potentials of Business Districts In Doha: The Case of theWest Bay. Velina Mirincheva, Florian Wiedmann and Ashraf M. SalamaUrban Reconfiguration and Revitalisation: Public Mega Projects in Doha'sHistoric Centre. Florian Wiedmann, Velina Mirincheva and Ashraf M. SalamaUnderstanding Inhabitants' Spatial Experience of the City Of Doha throughCognitive Mapping. Ashraf M. Salama, Ahood Al-Maimani, and Fatma KhalfaniExperiential Assessment of Urban Open Spaces in Doha. Ashraf M. Salama, Fatma Khalfani, and Ahood Al-MaimaniFrom Souqs to Emporiums: The Urban Transformation of Abu Dhabi.Yasser Elsheshtawy Urban Transformation in the City Of Riyadh: A Study of Plural Urban Identity.Mashary A. Al NaimTracing the Evolution of Urbanism in Kuwait. Yasser MahgoubThe Verticalization of Manama's Urban Periphery. Florian WiedmannImporting Exceptional Buildings:Transforming Urban Arabian Peninsula intoSkyscraper Cities. Kheir Al-Kodmany and Mir M. Ali
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Previous Issues
Vol. 38 No. 3 2013open house international
Theme Issue: ‘Zero‐Energy Mass Custom Home ResearchParadıgms’
Guest Editor: Dr. Masa Noguchi. MEARU (R&DZEMCH Group), Mackintosh School of Architecture,
The Glasgow School of Art, UK
Edited by Nicholas Wilkinson RIBA, Eastern Mediterranean University, North Cyprus.
DPU Associate, University College London, [email protected]
Vol. 38 No. 2 2013
open house international
OPEN ISSUE:
EDITORIAL: Nicholas WilkinsonCirculation and Open Space in Affordable Townhouse Communities.
Avi FriedmanA Typo-morphological study: The CMC Industrial Mass Housing District, Lefke,
Northern Cyprus. Nevter Zafer Cömert & Sebnem Önal HoskaraLessons from Vietnamese Urban Street Houses for Contemporary High-Rise
Housing. Le Thi Hong Na, Jin-Ho Park, Minjung ChoTranslating Memories: Reshaping Spatial Patterns on Ephemeral Urban
Dwelling. Jaime E. Gómez M.A Proposal for the Future of Vernacular Architecture Studies. James DavidsonEvaluating Indicators for Renewal of Properties via Gentrification in Budapest.
Lívia Róka-Madarász, Levente MályuszSymbolic Use of Wind-Catchers in Iran. Rafooneh Mokhtarshahi Sani & Payam
Mahasti ShotorbaniRedefining Vernacular: The Lebanese Diaspora Eclecticisms. Stephanie Dadour
State Mass Housing Scheme and The Low-Income Group In Abuja.Bawa Chafe Abdullahi & Wan Nor Azriyati Wan Abd Aziz
Editorial: Masa noguchiDesign Issues for Net Zero-Energy Buildings
Laura aelenei, daniel aelenei, helder gonçalves, roberto lollini,Eike musall, alessandra scognamiglio, eduard cubi & massa noguchi
Mass-Customized Net Energy-Positive Housing For the Great Lakes RegionGeoffrey thün, kathy velikov, mary o’malley & colin ripley
Casa Zero Energy: An Italian prototype of Zero Energy BuildingAntonio frattari
Mass Housing and Sustainability. Harald n. RøstvikModular, Sustainable and Customized: Projects for the Contemporary Dwelling
Alessandra de cesaris & domizia mandolesiConfiguring Product Variants in Customisation Strategies for House-Building
Cecília gravina da rocha & carlos torres formosoSustainable Measures and Economic Value in Green Housing Chihiro shimizu
Measured Home Environment and Energy Consumption Compared to acceptedstandards. Hasim altan, mohamed refaee, liangxiu han & masa noguchi
Book ReviewYonca hurol
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The existing housing stock has a major energy sav-ing potential and is mostly considered to be the sec-tor in which energy efficiency most cost effectivelycan be achieved. About 30% of all energy use isconsumed in the housing stock. The Europeanunion formulates saving targets, policies and regu-lations that have to be implemented by the memberstates and a considerable share of the EU budgetfor research and innovation is dedicated to thischallenge. In recent years many policies, invest-ment programmes, technical innovations andprocess innovations have been developed andbeen put into practice. However, it appears to bevery difficult to realise massive renovation pro-grammes in the existing housing stock and reallymake a step forward towards the energy efficiencygoals. This special issue presents an overview ofactual insights of the perspectives of energy effi-ciency in the housing stock based on severalresearch projects and analyses and discussionsabout how the current policies will work out andwhich are the barriers that still have to be taken. Wefocus on the policies, the processes and the people.
Lars A. Engberg (page 6) analysed howplanners of the Copenhagen City Council struggleto promote energy retrofitting projects in the urbanrenewal scheme to meet the aim of Copenhagen tobecome the first carbon neutral capital in the worldby 2025. The study finds that planners approachgreen retrofitting as a ‘wicked problem’ thatrequires new solution strategies targeting the com-plexity of developing new retrofitting standards andsolutions in the existing urban renewal framework.
The question of the effects of energy pover-ty on residential segregation is raised by KatrinGroßmann e.a. (page 14). They used survey datafrom a small shrinking city in Germany andexplored how energy costs are interrelated with res-idential location decisions and found that energyefficiency indeed plays a role in location decisions.Low income households seek to minimize housingcosts in general, paying specific attention to heat-ing systems, thermal insulation and costs.
Louise Reid (page 25) analysed the poten-tial and practical impact of the UK Green deal pol-icy. She found many critiques from industry, envi-ronmental pressure groups as well as from housingprofessionals. There has been a limited take up ofGreen Deal loans by householders, and theinstalled measures presumably offer only minimalimprovements in energy efficiency. Reid concludesby suggesting that instead of being a revolutionaryway to improve the energy efficiency of the UK’sdomestic building stock, the Green Deal couldeven increase existing social injustice and lead toenvironmental degradation. She suggest that theeffort should, instead, focus on understanding how
energy demand is created through householders’expectation.
Besides the environmental challenges andthe reduction of the energy costs, the renovationgoals can also be viewed from the perspective ofthe economy and the impact it will have on the EUlabour market. Frits Meijer e.a. (page 34) studiedthe potential of jobs being created. Studies showthat for every €1 million investment in the existingbuilding stock in the form of energy renovationwork, 12 to 17 new jobs could be created. To meetthe formulated energy efficiency goals and relatedrenovation programmes, indeed 100.000’s ofvaluable jobs could be created at a time whenthese are seriously needed. But yet, the actualprogress of renovations in Europe is still low andthe question remains weather the large scale invest-ments will be realised.
Nico Nieboer e.a. (page 41) explored theprogress of energy renovations form the perspectiveof housing providers. They present the results of aninvestigation of the policy developments in the non-profit housing sector in the Netherlands. The find-ings show a progress in their policy ambitions inrecent years, but also a large discrepancy with theambitions set for the whole sector in a covenantwith national government and the tenants union.
Tadeo Baldiri Salcedo Rahola e.a. (page48) investigated the potential of integrated con-tracts for energy renovation projects in France andfound positive results and several advantages com-pared to traditional project delivery methods, likeDesign-bid-Build. The integrated contracts facilitatecollaboration between the various actors and boosttheir commitment to the achievement of projectgoals. Design-Build-Maintain contracts do indeedoffer substantial energy savings, they were complet-ed in less time and at the same cost.
Another promising process innovation isproposed by Rodrigo Garcia Alvarado e.a. (page57). They developed and assessed a strategy foreffective and feasible modifications in the design ofrefurbishments of single-family homes to reduceenergy use while maintaining indoor comfort. Theimprovements proposed are based on dynamicenergy simulations of individual models adapted tolocal realities in Chile. Different sets of measureshave been identified to achieve high reductions inenergy demand while having low cost and beinghighly appreciated by the participants.
The final two contributions in this issueaddress the actual energy use in dwellings. We canimprove the skin and the installations and providepotentially more efficient dwellings, but the actualenergy use is caused when the occupants are heat-ing the dwelling to create a comfortable living envi-ronment.
Editorial
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accuracy of different methods of individual meter-ing and charging of energy costs to be apportionedamong tenants in multi-apartment buildings basedon their own energy use to facilitate reduced ener-gy use due to saving behaviour by tenants. Theconclusion of the study is that it is difficult to mea-sure the actual heat used for an individual apart-ment, which obstructs accurate and fair apportion-ing of heating costs among individual tenants.
In the last article (page 78) we presentsome figures and insights of the relation betweenexpected and actual energy use. New housingseems to have problems with achieving therequired quality and the rebound effect in thebehaviour of the occupants also has a underminingeffect on the energy use. In the existing stock peo-ple in bad insulated housing appear to use far lessenergy than expected. It appears that renovationimproves the comfort level and only leads to a lim-ited energy use reduction. These insights deliver anew perspective on the current policies and expec-tations of the effects of renovations.
The aims for the improvement of the hous-ing stock are evident. The detailed studies in thearticles in this special issue show however that thereare many challenges and barriers to overcome.Besides the technical innovations accurate poliesare needed. Innovations of the building processesprovide chances for improved quality and reducedcosts. And on the first place we should study theperspective of the occupants more in detail.
Author(s):
Dr. Henk Visscher, OTB Research for the Built Environment,Faculty of Architecture and the Built Envornment, DelftUniversity of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft,The Netherlands.E-Mail: H.J. [email protected]
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danish urban renewal practices have developed inresponse to shifting societal needs. in the 1950sand 1960s, focus was on slum clearance andinner-city sanitation. in the 1970s and 1980s, thelarge inner-city districts of major cities were reno-vated, and public funding for urban renewal wasplentiful. in the 1990s, public budgets for urbanrenewal were reduced and focus narrowed down tocity centres and socially distressed neighbourhoods.for the last 10 to 15 years, danish urban renewalhas taken on a more strategic role as a catalyst foran economic, social and environmental growthagenda in area-based urban regeneration pro-grammes based on citizens’ participation in jointefforts to create better urban spaces.
the role of local governments and the roleof urban planners in charge of renewal activitieshave changed as a consequence of these develop-ments. roughly speaking, urban renewal in the1950s and 1960s was a reflection of the modernistparadigm in public planning where planners asexperts implemented their grand schemes for slum-clearance, creating ‘better and brighter’ innercities. the classical planning approach was chal-lenged in the 1980s, especially in copenhagen,when local residents defended their neighbour-hoods and fought against the bulldozer tactics ofthe city council. influenced by such examples ofcivic resistance to top-down programmes, law-makers and planners introduced collaborative
mechanisms in order better to plan and negotiatethe large-scale renewals of the 1990s with resi-dents. with the introduction of area-based regen-eration, this collaborative dimension has been fur-ther developed into quite complex collaborativestructures and processes that vary according tolocal circumstances.
in a public governance perspective, danishurban renewal can be divided into three historicalphases: in the first phase, the state implementedlarge-scale top-down organised slum clearanceand inner-city renovation projects. in the secondphase, this approach was supplemented with bot-tom-up mechanisms for better collaboration withresidents and stakeholders. this collaborative turnhas not been without frictions and coordination-conflicts, but local governments have perceivedthese more in terms of local conflicts at the level ofthe neighbourhood than systemic issues to beexplicitly dealt with at city hall (engberg et.al 2000).in the third phase, city administrations have begunto analyse and reconfigure the administrative con-text for better intra-municipal coordination of com-prehensive and area-based interventions,approaching contextualized coordination as achallenge also to be dealt with at the level of thecity administration (engberg & Norvig larsen2010). in this perspective, the urban regenerationissue challenges local governance structures andcultures, a discernible mechanism in the case of the‘wickedness’ of the energy and climate agendas asillustrated in the following.
Lars A. Engberg
Abstract
The City of Copenhagen aims to become the first carbon neutral capital in the world by 2025. Ten per cent of the total
CO2-reduction target is to be achieved through energy retrofitting of existing buildings in the city. This article reports
from an action research study in the urban renewal section in Copenhagen City Council where planners struggle to
promote more and better energy retrofitting projects in the urban renewal scheme. The study finds that planners in fact
approach green retrofitting as a ‘wicked problem’ that requires new solution strategies targeting the complexity of devel-
oping new retrofitting standards and solutions in the existing urban renewal framework. The analysis shows how plan-
ners’ strategic responses are challenged by competing worldviews concerning the role of urban renewal and the prob-
lems and potentials of green retrofitting in practice.
Keywords: Wicked Problems, Green Retrofitting, Urban Renewal, Area-Based Regeneration, Urban Planners.
NegotiatiNg greeN retrofittiNg staNdards iNdaNish urbaN reNewal :- the case of copeNhageN
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gGreen retrofitting as a ‘wicked’ problem in urbanrenewal
green retrofitting in urban renewal is a complexand contested issue. experts and stakeholders dis-agree on the costs and benefits of energy efficiencymeasures in building renovations, and conceptslike 'sustainable housing' or 'green buildings' aresubject to discursive contestation. No single objec-tive definition of 'green buildings' exists but an arrayof competing understandings, each embedded indifferent social contexts. it is remarkable how “dif-ferent discourses of green design are mobilised bydifferent, often competing, actors and…framed bydynamic and technical contexts of building devel-opment and infrastructure provision” (guy & Moore2005, p. 9). as a policy issue, green retrofitting hasall the characteristics of a wicked problem. greenretrofitting measures are contested with regard totechnical solutions, architectural quality, preserva-tion objectives, costs and benefits, co2-reductionoutcomes, social justice implications and so on.from a public governance perspective, green retro-fitting in building renovation poses a substantialimplementation challenge to urban planners.
wicked problems are long-term issues withmultiple causes that require complex publicresponses, and they depend on the participation ofnon-public actors in their solution (armistead et al.2007). as complex, persistent and contested policyissues, wicked problems accentuate the well-knowncoordination problems that face fragmented publicagencies (provan & Kennis 2007), (Johnston2005), (crosby & bryson 2010), (engberg & Norviglarsen 2010). the ‘wickedness’ infuses a sense ofinsecurity in the strategic rationality of publicadministrations: Not only do civil servants disagreeon problem analyses and the means and ends ofspecific policies and strategies, they also have tonegotiate these in collaboration with non-publicactors. from this perspective, dealing with wickedproblems necessarily entails an institutional reflec-tion-in-action process (schön 1983) where profes-sionals are more or less compelled to engage instrategic learning to revise and improve gover-nance responses to these problems.
the article reports from an action researchstudy in the urban design department in the city ofcopenhagen. the key research question is whetherplanners approach green retrofitting as a wickedproblem that requires new solution strategies andinstitutional capacity building. the article has threeparts. the first provides a brief outline of the urbanrenewal context in denmark. the second partdescribes the research question and method, andthe final part presents and discusses key findings.
Context: Urban renewal in Denmark
contemporary urban renewal is regulated in theact on urban renewal and development of cities.the act provides financial subsidies for three typesof urban renewal activity: building renewal, arearegeneration, and renewal of inner-city courtyards.local government matches state subsidies with anamount equal to that of the total state subsidy.subsidies are granted to:-
1. rental properties without up-to-date heating, toi-let or bath; or to rental properties built before 1950that are considerably rundown2. owner-occupied or cooperative properties with-out up-to-date heating, toilet or bath, or owner-occupied or cooperative properties built before1950 that are considerably rundown3. conversion of private business into rental prop-erty if the business has been shut down
the area regeneration scheme is a publicsubsidy for a comprehensive area-intervention insegregated urban areas. local authorities apply forstate subsidies to regenerate rundown urban areasin large and small cities and in new housing areaswith social problems. subsidies can be used forrenovation of streets, roads and squares, and forsocial and cultural activities. also, local govern-ments receive subsidies for planning, fact-findingand organising when transforming old industrialand port areas. subsidies are conditional on theinclusion of local stakeholders in the planning andimplementation of the initiative.
Energy and climate issues
with the danish energy policy agreement in 2008,the then right-wing government formulated a strat-egy for reducing energy consumption in buildings(regeringen, 2009). the strategy aims to givedenmark a leading role in energy efficiency and cli-mate-oriented construction practices, and thevision is that future buildings are to be plus energybuildings that produce more energy than they con-sume. in 2006, the danish building regulationsreplaced a net energy frame with a gross energyframe meaning that owners and builders can meetrequirements in a flexible way, balancing energyefficiency measures with various renewable energysources. also, in 2006 the eu directive on theenergy performance in buildings (epbd) was imple-mented in danish legislation, which stipulates thatbuildings require energy certificates when they areconstructed, sold, rented out, or undergo majorrenovation.
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inspired by these developments, the danishparliament in 2009 adopted an amendment to theact on urban renewal and urban developmentthat allows city councils to disregard the eligibilitycriteria in the building renovation scheme and sub-sidise energy upgrading projects if applicants haveenergy certificates. during 2013, the danishparliament was debating a new proposal concern-ing ‘green’ urban renewal [grøn byfornyelse]. theproposal stipulates that landlords can invest ingreen retrofitting and charge a higher rent thanunder the current rules provided that the costs ofthe improvement do not exceed the total reductionin tenants’ housing expenditures (primarily rent plusenergy) within a certain time frame. also, the prop-erty owner and a majority of tenants can enter intoan agreement about green retrofitting in a modelwhere an energy company buys the documentedenergy-saving to meet its own reduction targets asdefined in national energy policy agreements.
Research question and method
the research draws on the argumentative turn inpolicy analysis (fischer & forester 1993), (roe1994), (hajer & wagenaar 2003), (healey 1997),(forester 1993) that emphasises how actors bothinterpret and define the world when interacting withit. as hajer and wagenaar put it:
"Worldviews (…) are shaped, incrementally andpainfully, in the struggle of everyday people withconcrete, ambiguous, tenacious, practical problemsand questions. People (…) tell stories and formulatearguments to get a handle on this world of com-plexity and uncertainty (…) stories and arguments(…) are assessed in communities of people whoare knowledgeable about the problem at hand, andwho are all too conscious of the political, financialand practical constraints that define the situation forwhich they bear responsibility" (hajer & wagenaar2003, p. 14).
the starting point for the action researchwas to investigate how the copenhagen plannersapproached the energy agenda as a wicked prob-lem. how did they address the cognitive, strategicand institutional complexities of green retrofittingsolutions in practice? did they develop actualstrategies to handle these complexities in an effortto develop better resolution frameworks? actors’worldviews influence they ways in which they strate-gize issues. when issues are constructed as prob-lems in the minds of actors they are prone to pro-mote their own agendas and interests, a fact thatunderlines the analytical connection between nar-
rative and strategy (Kemeney, 1984, 1992). tooperationalize this link between narrative and strat-egy i used the notion of structuring narrative,defined as a narrative that reflects a specific modeof organisation and division of roles between actorsin a collective action process whereby the narrativeconditions the outcome of this interaction process(engberg 2000, p. 252). the working hypothesiswas that such narratives existed that would structurespecific negotiations of solution strategies to bettercope with the green retrofitting issue. thus, theresearch question was as follows: Do urban plan-ners develop solution strategies to deal with thegreen retrofitting agenda as a wicked problem? Ifaffirmative, how are these strategies conditioned bythe world-views, roles and practices (structuring nar-ratives) of planners?
the action research combined desk stud-ies, field observations and semi-structured qualita-tive interviews (16 in total) with a workshop format.written outlines of the general qualitative analysiswere discussed with and validated by practitionersand used as inspiration for reflection workshops.the research process was structured in three phas-es:
first, planners’ views and experiences relat-ing to urban renewal and green retrofitting prac-tices were mapped through semi-structured quali-tative interviews. the qualitative data surfaced dif-ferent and conflicting narratives, a result that wasaddressed in a subsequent workshop process.
second, the green retrofitting issue wasbroken down into its specific components to oper-ationalize the steering challenge, and a number ofspecific initiatives to create a more efficient frame-work for dealing with the energy issue were initiat-ed. this phase entailed an internal focus on admin-istrative practices, and an external focus on differ-ent network initiatives to address the problem at dif-ferent levels.
in the third and still ongoing phase (2014)the specific initiatives were categorized and priori-tized as solution strategies (referred to as innovationtracks) all creating a proactive push for more andbetter energy projects. developing these steps, theresearcher’s role was defined as a ‘critical friend’.friend referred to the loyal effort to access the com-plexity of the contextualised knowledge of practi-tioners, and critical to the obligation to reflectivelyquestion knowledge formations to stimulate reflec-tion-in-action (argyris & schön 1978) and push for-ward multiple and potentially competing narrativesand logics. potentially, this would contribute to theplanners own strategization of the wp-issue.because the department initiated the research pro-ject to strategize the energy issue the researcher’sposition was formally biased in favour of this agen-
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gda, and therefore the explicit method used was tosystematically register and communicate both prosand cons relating to the energy issue as experi-enced by practitioners.
Case-study: Urban renewal in Copenhagen
the city of copenhagen aspires to become the firstcarbon-neutral capital in the world1. between2005 and 2015, the goal is to cut emissions by20% and then to proceed to become the first car-bon-neutral "eco-metropolis" by 2025. one of thecity’s main goals is to achieve 10% of its total co2reduction by 2015 through low-energy constructionand green retrofitting projects equivalent to 50,000tonnes of co2. like most danish cities,copenhagen has a longstanding tradition of urbanrenewal, and today only about 11% or 33,000homes of the city's 295,000 housing units lackbasic amenities like district heating, toilet and/orbath. 4,500 units still have a toilet on the backstairs. the urban design department administersthe urban renewal schemes regulated in the act onurban renewal and urban development.
the planners have two mechanisms bywhich they can promote energy-saving measures inbuilding renovations: 1) by accepting applicationsfor subsidies that include energy-saving measures,and by issuing recommendations and specificdemands in correspondence with the danishbuilding regulations 2010 and the city's normsdefined in the municipal building code. 2) by sup-porting innovative demonstration projects that pro-mote comprehensive and integrated ('smart') ener-gy upgrading. the city council has a strategy onsustainable urban renewal with the main focus onintegrating energy efficient solutions in renovationprojects (2009-13). in order to achieve the objec-tives of the strategy and the climate plan, the cityrequires energy certificates as a part of every appli-cation, and negotiates energy efficiency improve-ment measures in all renovation projects.
however, from a managerial perspective,there is a ‘wickedness’ in the green retrofittingagenda because of a discrepancy between thepolitical 10 per cent reduction target and thedepartments limited influence on owners' prefer-ences in terms of higher energy standards in indi-vidual applications under the renewal scheme. inpractice, the city’s effort to promote energy mea-sures takes place after renovation projects havebeen formulated and presented to the city council.planners cannot disseminate knowledge aboutgreen retrofitting at the level of specific renovationprojects, because applicants have to be treatedequally before the law. their primary role is reac-
tive; to select between incoming applications topromote specific objectives. the department con-cludes that “in order to reach the ambitious energyreduction targets in existing buildings inCopenhagen, it is imperative that urban renewalpractices become proactive” (center for bydesign2010). on this background, the department initiat-ed the action research study to look at administra-tive practices in relation to building renovation inorder to improve the number and quality of greenretrofitting projects.
Findings
the essence of the building renewal scheme isreactive control. planners work with building reno-vation in a formalised building renovation proce-dure. first, funding applications are evaluated onthe basis of detailed internal guidelines. if an appli-cation is accepted, the building is analysed, and thequality of the energy certificate is evaluated. thenplanners suggest improvements to the renovationproject and negotiate these with building owners.when a project is approved by the city council, itis priced and put out to tender. planners supervisebuilding and renovation activities, and approve thefinal construction account. each planner has aheavy caseload, and has more daily interactionswith owners, builders and contractors than with owncolleagues. the primary role component is that ofcontroller safeguarding building qualities accord-ing to specific detailed standards that applicantshave to comply with, but planners also provideadvice and negotiate projects. in all projects, plan-ners negotiate the balance between preservationand renovation.
working with the same standardizedadministrative procedure, different planners articu-lated different basic narratives describing their pro-fessional orientation in urban renewal, as illustratedby three quotes: 1. ‘The historical role of urbanrenewal in Copenhagen was significant, and now itis more or less over’ (planners as social reformers);2. ‘Our primary task is to safeguard the architectur-al heritage of buildings, and retrofitting must neitherchange the appearance nor the long-term health ofbuildings’ (planners as ‘city custodians’); and 3.‘Urban renewal has to become sustainable urbanrenewal, and we need a new proactive approach togreen retrofitting’ (planners as green innovators).
First narrative: Planners as social reformers
some planners articulate a social reform agenda:the key purpose of urban renewal should be to lift
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the bottom level of the housing market and toimprove the housing quality of people who cannotafford to do so themselves: “The first 18 years Iworked on the large Nørrebro renewal, we toredown a lot of derelict buildings and renovatednumerous apartments. After that period, fewerbuildings were demolished, and we turned to retro-fitting and upgrading. I still remember an old ladywho got a bathroom in her apartment; she was intears from being so happy” (urban planner).
this group find that the sustainability agen-da squeezes the social justice agenda ultimatelymaking their contribution superfluous: “There is notenough money for energy retrofitting…We arefaced with a choice: either we do not deliver on thesocial agenda, or we adopt a complete focus onenergy retrofitting and forget about traditionalurban renewal. I believe we stand at a crossroads:traditional building renovation will be replaced by acomplete focus on green retrofitting” (planner).
in this narrative, the social objective ofurban renewal is in crisis. the public funding avail-able in earlier periods is no longer there, and thefocus on the bottom section of the housing marketis pushed aside when resources go into green retro-fitting. the building renovation scheme is based onthe voluntary participation of building owners, andit is generally difficult to make owners as well asrenters accept cost-effective energy measures whenthese measures imply extra initial costs in the pro-ject: “What matters to people is their rent, what theycan pay here and now. If they cannot afford therent, calculations about future savings do really notmatter” (planner).
Second narrative: Planners as ‘city custodians’
for most planners, many energy efficiency mea-sures are incompatible with preservation concerns:”I am interested in the buildings’ textural and archi-tectural features, and in keeping these as intact aspossible after the renovation. Many Copenhagenbuildings have red tile roofs and sun cells are black,we have only recently allowed cells on a black roof.We have detailed requirements concerning replace-ment of existing windows. We only allow externalinsulation on the courtside of buildings, in somecases. Some buildings are classified with high archi-tectural values, and these we do not touch, but thedebate concerns the remaining buildings. If we one-sidedly go for green retrofitting, we risk installing aticking time-bomb that will set off in 20 years ifbuildings become moist, and mould starts to grow”(planner).
the conflict is an everyday challenge andplanners work hard to make sure that renovation
projects are healthy, technically appropriate and donot damage buildings. green retrofitting entailsinsecurity: how to stimulate market demand if it isnot there already, and if successful, are solutionseconomically viable? what are the actual effects interms of co2 reductions? can new solutions beintegrated with architectural requirements andguidelines? will tomorrow’s energy efficiency mea-sures outperform the solutions that we implementtoday? can people afford green retrofitting; is it intheir best interest?
Third narrative: Planners as green innovators
with the growing political emphasis on energy andclimate, some planners call for a rethink of theadministrative framework for urban renewal incopenhagen: “The essence is that we need torethink our administrative practices and the ways inwhich we view buildings. But most of all, we need ashift in culture. The classic approach where we con-trol and regulate building retrofitting according tointernal guidelines needs to be supplemented by afocus on process and strategy” (planner).
some members of the building team inves-tigate the professional development of new greenstandards and solutions. the planners frame thevision that green retrofitting of buildings shouldcontribute to the transition towards a carbon-freesociety. but in practice, it is difficult to deliver interms of number and quality of these projects: howto develop proactive measures that stimulate pub-lic demand for smart energy upgrading projects ina tight market, while integrating this agenda in theexisting guidelines to building renovation?
Discussion: Developing solution strategies
the three narratives reflect internal tensions andsome degree of frustration and disorientation with-in the planners’ group. some of the plannersworked on large sanitation projects in the inner-citydistricts. in their professional ethos they combinethe social justice criterion (decent housing to lesswell-off citizens) with the preservation objectivewhich they find is being undermined by the energyissue. the two dominant narratives - city custodiansand social reformers - are congruent with theadministrative framework with its emphasis on cau-tious enforcement and control of specific standards.the third narrative, green innovators, is not sup-ported by the organisational setup where the spe-cific content of renovation projects (including theintroduction of new energy standards etc.) is devel-oped by owners, contractors and builders who all
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operate relatively independently of city hall. the existence of conflicting narratives illus-
trate how the ‘wickedness’ of green retrofitting as apolicy-challenge turns into an institutional ‘wicked-ness’: internal disagreement hampered the teams’capacity to strategize solutions. the majority of
planners identified with the first two narratives, andsaw the basic ‘wickedness’ as relating to the ener-gy agenda per se. however, the agenda was splitdown into its interconnected sub-problems, andplanners organised innovation workshops to rethinkrules and practices internally and in relation to
Figure 1. Lars A. Engberg illustrations
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external stakeholders. in this process, a new con-sensus emerged that some buildings in fact matchall social, environmental and economic priorities,pointing towards a more unified resolution frame-work.
internally, a comprehensive administrativeanalysis and rationalisation process to reduce theadministrative building renovation procedure from3 to 2 years on average was set in motion. Newgreen standards and guidelines were developed,and a better integration of buildings renovation andarea-based approaches in disadvantaged city dis-tricts was formulated. also, a better system forbenchmarking results of green retrofitting projectswas set up. externally, campaigns involved ownersand renters in sustainable urban renewal, andworkshops with contractors and builders dissemi-nated knowledge about the city’s aspirations andguidelines. to push for more efficient products onthe market, planners set up a series of meetingswith producers of windows, insulation and ventila-tion-systems.
the building envelope proved to be thebiggest challenge. the city’s architectural and aes-thetic guidelines place strict limitations on modifi-cations of building surfaces. on the inside the chal-lenge is moisture and mould growth. experiments incooperation with danish insulation manufacturersindicate that the conflict between internal insulationand architectural preservation value can be negoti-ated successfully (Knudsen 2013). in 2012, plan-ners ran a city-wide competition for building own-ers to become the new ‘climate housing block’:once elected, building owners would enter a part-nership with contractors, developers and plannersto develop state-of-the-art green retrofitting andclimate mitigation solutions, and implement thesein a comprehensive and ambitious retrofitting of thehousing block. More than 100 bids were submittedinto the competition, but the winning party optedout of the partnership fearing rent increases, andthe city is currently on the lookout for a new build-ing owner to enter the scheme.
Conclusion
the article set out to investigate how planners dealtwith green retrofitting as a wicked problem, devel-oping strategic responses conditioned by theirworld-views, roles and practices. the urban renew-al group in the city of copenhagen did in factapproach the green retrofitting issue as a wickedproblem, negotiating two basic worldviews: a scep-tical position, where planners emphasised theinherent risks of green retrofitting (health issues,negative cost-benefit scenarios, social injustice
implications, architectural concerns) and sought toprevent the potential destruction of healthy build-ings worthy of preservation. an optimistic position,where planners emphasised the potential of greenretrofitting (an urban renewal renaissance, win-winsolutions regarding costs, a synthesis of energy effi-ciency measures and architecture, the social justiceperspective with higher energy prices) seeking tostimulate innovation processes to catalyse thispotential.
obviously planners do influence retrofittingpractices by revising control lists and public guide-lines, but they cannot force private parties to inno-vate better and more cost-effective energy solu-tions. if they put too much emphasis on regulationand control, they make it more difficult to push forvoluntary innovation of synergy and new standardsin building and renovation projects, but if they sitback very little happens. individual retrofitting pro-jects are complex and the challenge is to promotegeneral guidelines and eligibility criteria that setnew high standards and target the specific condi-tions of individual projects in steering dialogueswith private contractors. this entails a high level oftechnical and architectural expertise that needs tobe developed and tested in collaboration with pro-ducers, owners, renters and contractors. from anorganisational learning perspective this is a frustrat-ingly slow process, when innovation, construction,testing and documentation run in feed-back loopsspanning 4 to 6 years. the new proposal for ‘greenurban renewal’ has a potential to give owners andrenters better economic incentives to opt for greenretrofitting. if this comes to pass, it points to a newsynthesis of social and environmental objectivesand a potential renaissance for danish urbanrenewal in the coming decade.
overall, the copenhagen planners areambivalent and critical of the emerging greenretrofitting discourse in the city. they develop theirroles and take on new technical expertise regardinggreen retrofitting, and orchestrate a range of indi-rect and direct measures to stimulate the develop-ment of new solutions. but essentially they perceiveof their planners’ position as ‘city custodians’responsible for protecting existing building values,a position that is if not undermined then challengedby the strong focus on the sustainable transitiontowards the co2-neutral society. as conflictingopposites, the old and new narratives structure thesocial dynamics of the learning processes takingplace in the urban renewal section, and plannerswork hard to negotiate a new platform that betterintegrates these new requirements with their existingprofessional ethos.
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author(s):
lars a. engberg, phd, senior researcherdepartment of town, housing and propertydanish building research institute, aalborg universitya.c. Meyers Vænge 15, 2450 København sV, denmarke-mail: [email protected]
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the intensive debate in the Uk on energy poverty,namely the inability of households to afford oraccess adequate heating, demonstrates that ener-gy-poor households are often trapped in a viciouscircle, that is, they can afford only substandardhousing that requires even more energy, be it fuelor electricity, to be heated adequately, and thusexperience a higher burden from rising energyprices (see special issue in “Energy Policy” vol.49/2012). the same correlation has been docu-mented for the Us (hernández and bird 2010), andfor post-socialist cities in southeastern Europe,where rising prices are a key to increasing energypoverty (buzar 2007, Cash 2012, bouzarovski2013, triado-herrero and Ürge-Vorsatz 2012).the energy poverty literature, to date, has focusedmainly on the identification of groups suffering fromhigh energy costs, on the causes and conse-quences, especially for the health of people, as wellas on policy responses to mitigate the problems.(hernandez 2010; Un-habitat 2009; boardman
2010, Walker and day 2012). it has been pointedout that energy costs are part of overall housingcosts (boumeester and haffner 2013), which areone of the triggers of residential segregation.however, neither residential mobility nor the overallpatterns of segregation have received much atten-tion in energy poverty research.
Pilot studies in germany showed that theproblem is becoming more prevalent and theyidentify the working poor, welfare recipients, stu-dents, and pensioners as groups most at risk forenergy poverty (kopatz et al. 2013; bMWi/ bMU2012;Verbraucherzentrale nrW 2013; Malottkiand Vaché 2013). heating costs are less in thefocus of the german debate than electricity costs,even though they might represent a greater burden(kopatz et al. 2013). another concern in thegerman debate is that energy efficiency measurescould foster displacement, due to rising rents, thusleading to increasing residential segregation incities (holm 2011). set against the background ofrising general housing prices, both in the rental andin the owner-occupied sectors, a debate among
Großmann, Katrin; Buchholz, Johan; Buchmann, Carsten;Hedtke, Christoph; Höhnke, Carolin; Schwarz, Nina
AbstractIn debates related to energy poverty, the link to questions of residential segregation remains somewhat peripheral.Because, usually, only energy-poor households are at the focus and residential mobility is not addressed, the interde-pendencies between households’ energy costs and the residential segregation of cities remain out of sight. Concernthat energy efficiency measures could foster socio-spatial segregation in cities has recently emerged in Germany. If onlyhouseholds with higher incomes can afford housing with high energy efficiency standards, whereas low income house-holds tend to choose non-refurbished but, in sum, more affordable housing stock, an increasing concentration of poorhouseholds in poor housing conditions would result. German energy efficiency and CO2 reduction policies are rela-tively insensitive to such questions.Using survey data from a small shrinking city in Germany, we explore how energy costs are interrelated with residen-tial location decisions and, thus, with segregation processes and patterns. Shrinking cities represent an interesting casebecause, here, a decreasing demand for housing stimulates residential mobility and paves the way for dynamic recon-figurations of socio-spatial patterns.
We found that energy-related aspects of homes play a role in location decisions. Low income households seek tominimize housing costs in general, paying specific attention to heating systems, thermal insulation and costs. Resultingsegregation effects depend very much on where affordable and, at the same time, energy-efficient housing stock is spa-tially concentrated in cities. These findings should be taken into consideration for future policies on energy in existingdwellings.
Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Residential Mobility, Segregation, Shrinking Cities.
EnErgy Costs, rEsidEntial Mobility, andsEgrEgation in a shrinking City.
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*various interest and lobby groups has emerged,whereas empirical evidence, however, has not yetbeen provided. this concern is certainly rooted inthe specific tenure structure in german housingmarkets, which are dominated by rental housing,especially in larger cities. it points to a blind spot inthe energy poverty literature: residential mobilityrelated to energy issues and the resulting patterns ofsegregation in cities, as second order effects, havereceived less attention.
this is where our paper steps in. Using sur-vey data, we analyse the role of energy- relatedaspects in housing choices of different socialgroups and explore their (potential) impact on resi-dential segregation.
re s i d en t i a l seg r ega t i o n and ene rgycos t s
in a basic consensus, residential segregation wasdefined as the uneven distribution of social groupsin urban space (duncan and duncan 1955,Massey and denton 1988). the search for causesof this unevenness focused on different driversoperating at different spatial scales, ranging from –roughly – (1) logics of the market and the powerrelations at the macro-level, (2) the influence ofintermediary actors such as local administrations,housing companies, and their regulations on themeso-level to (3) the behaviour of households atthe micro-level. related to the third point, mobilitystudies revealed that a combination of age and life-cycle stages, income, tenure, and housing prefer-ences influence mobility decisions of households (e.g. Clark and dieleman 1996, aragonés et al.2002). but choice is, in fact, restricted: rex andMoore’s (1967) influential work pointed to one ofthe main mechanisms of segregation – the unequalaccess of households to housing. housing choicethus also depends on household resources.Whereas for groups of lower social status, residen-tial location decisions are restricted by affordability,higher social classes can choose from a widerrange of housing segments. Under unregulatedmarket conditions, this leads to concentrations ofhouseholds of similar socio-economic status, withprocess and outcome varying across contexts (foroverviews, see van kempen 2002, Maloutas andFujita 2012).
Energy costs are part of housing costs;therefore, they are part of the question of theaffordability of housing. different housing segmentshave different energy standards and, thus, differentenergy needs for heating them to an appropriatetemperature, as defined by the Who (2006).Factors involved here are the size and height of
indoor rooms, the heating systems typically found indifferent segments and – most decisively – the stan-dard of insulation (loga et al. 2011). Whereas, inowner-occupied homes, the efficiency standardscan be influenced directly by owners, tenantsdepend on the decisions of landlords and housingcompanies. We can assume that, for tenants, hous-ing mobility is one way to escape high energy costs.
slightly more attention is being paid to therole of energy factors in house hunting strategiesand household’s preferences in germany, but littleempirical research is being carried out. the gdW(german association of housing companies) pub-lished a study that supports the argument that moreenergy efficiency measures might increase socialpolarization in german cities. the core argumenthere is that only households with higher incomescan afford housing with high energy efficiency stan-dards and that they are, at the same time, morelikely to have a preference for high energy efficien-cy standards. low- income households, in contrast,do not pay as much attention to energy costs of dif-ferent housing stock and look for cheaper housing.as a result, they tend to choose non-refurbishedbut, in sum, more affordable housing stock. in thelong run, this could lead to an increasing concen-tration of poor households in poor housing condi-tions (gerth et al. 2011). What we know from exist-ing research partly supports this hypothesis. Energycosts have been a side issue in studies on reurban-ization that enquire about the motivation for choos-ing inner-city locations over suburban housing.these studies conclude that attention to energycosts increases if a household has struggled withhigh energy costs in a former housing location, e.g.high heating costs of single family homes or highcosts for individual daily travel (bMVbs/bbr 2007).Findings from the netherlands regarding energyperformance certificates for buildings show thatadoption rates are higher in areas with lower aver-age incomes (brounen & kok, 2012). however,studies also suggest that energy performance cer-tificates play only a minor role in the decision aboutwhich house to buy in germany (amecke 2012,idEal-EPbd 2011) as well as in other countries(e.g. laine 2011). attention might increase with ris-ing energy costs. in 2007, the gdW found thatenergy costs for german households had risen by50% within just 10 years. although energy stan-dards had not been important in housing prefer-ences, the study concludes that this is about tochange: “Ecological factors” play a role for all agegroups, and slightly more so for home-owners andhigher income groups. in conclusion, a higher con-centration of high-income groups in cities is expect-ed (gdW 2008, 77-81, 104, 179-80).
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in our paper, we focus on the behaviour ofhouseholds. Using survey data from delitzsch, amedium-sized city in eastern germany, we explorehow the energy costs are interrelated with residen-tial segregation. one more introductory note onpopulation development is required here. the cityof delitzsch is a shrinking city that lost 18% of itspopulation over the last 20 years, due to out-migration following economic decline and a steepdrop in fertility rates. as a consequence, delitzsch,like many other eastern german cities, experiencedhousing vacancies. these vacancies stimulate – atleast in germany - residential mobility (sturm andWalther 2012) and pave the way for dynamicreconfigurations of socio-spatial patterns in theaffected cities (Fol 2012, großmann et al. 2013).therefore, in shrinking cities the effects of reloca-tions should become visible faster. Mobility rates indelitzsch reached a peak in the mid-2000s witharound 80 relocations per 1,000 residents peryear. this coincides with the years of emergingvacancies in the city.
in the following, we analyse the topic alongthree questions, namely: What is the role of energy aspects in households’preferences and location decisions? What are the existing relationships between hous-ing stock, social status and energy poverty and, Which potential processes of residential segrega-tion might be induced by energy performance ofbuildings?
data and methods
this study is based on quantitative data that werecollected in a city-wide questionnaire survey indelitzsch in 2012. in addition, municipal data fromregistry records provided by the urban planningauthority were used to describe population devel-opment, migration, and the spatial allocation ofbuilding types; see Fig. 1.
this questionnaire was distributed person-ally and re-collected. With this method, 1015 ques-tionnaires were returned, providing a return rate of49%, related to the number of households whowere asked to fill out a questionnaire. in terms ofrepresentativeness, the data match the populationdistribution within different districts of the city andthus the spatial proportions in different dwellingtypes (see fig. 1). the age structure within the dis-tricts was compared to registry data and weightedaccordingly (e.g. for calculating mean values ofdistricts). the categories of buildings represent amatch of the information gathered within the surveyand the german building typology (loga et al.2011), which categorizes german building typesaccording to their characteristics and time of con-struction (see table 1).
We then conducted a secondary analysis ofthese data that were originally intended to informan agent-based model about the relocation criteriaof households/agents. therefore, data about thestate of refurbishment of houses, for example, are,unfortunately, not available. in order to statistically
Figure 1. Building types, years of construction, and population density in Delitzsch. Bar plots show numbers of buildingsof the three dominant types in the respective district. MFH = multi-family houses, SFH = single family houses,RH = row houses.
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*analyse the explanatory value of household vari-ables for energy-related aspects, classification andregression trees were applied (r statistical software).regression trees based on recursive partitioningand variable importance related to the four mostimportant variables for each split of the tree werecalculated (r packages rpart and caret). thismethod is largely robust against assumptions fordistributions of the data, universal for the handlingof categorical and metric variables, and it alsodelivers a straightforward measure of influence ofindependent variables.
Energy aspec t s as a d r i ver o f re loca-t ion dec i s ions
the questionnaire included questions about prefer-ences for previous and for envisioned relocations.on the one hand, we analysed push factors, whichare attributes of the current or the previous flat thatstimulate a household to move house, becausethey are perceived as disadvantage. on the otherhand, we also analysed pull factors, which are cri-teria that a household looks for when choosing anew flat.
the comparison between the pull factorsfor the current flat and for a future flat (see Figures2 and 3) show that, for the past, prices, the condi-tion of the building, and light intensity were thethree top criteria, followed by three energy-relevantaspects. this picture changes completely whenenvisioned future relocations within the next 5 yearsare considered: low heating costs, an energy-effi-cient heating system, and good thermal insulationare the most important pull factors for a new flat,only then followed by the price. nevertheless,
affordability of the flat is also very relevant and,among energy aspects, low heating costs rank first.For low-income households, both low heating andlow general housing costs are the top criteria.
high heating costs in the current flat is alsothe most important push factor for households thatwill possibly relocate within the next 5 years. Figure5 shows that energy related push factors alreadyranked high for the previous relocation. here, out-dated heating systems still played a role. this haschanged today because, in the 1990s, most formercoal-heating systems were replaced by oil or gasheating. interestingly, thermal insulation did not dis-appear as a push factor, even though the 1990swere also years of extensive refurbishment efforts in
Figure 3. Importance of energy aspects as a push factor foran envisioned relocation; columns indicate number of men-tions, multiple answers possible, answers provided fromhouseholds that are considering relocation within the nextfive years.
Figure 4. Importance of energy aspects as a push factor forthe last relocation decision; columns indicate number ofmentions, multiple answers possible. Answers providedfrom households that relocated within the last 20 years.
Figure 2. Importance of energy aspects as a pull factor forthe last relocation decision; columns indicate number ofmentions, multiple answers possible. Answers providedfrom households that relocated within the last 20 years.
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former Eastern germany and, thus, in delitzsch,too.
in order to investigate the social underpin-nings of energy related preferences, we built a sin-gle variable expressing that one of the energy-relat-ed pull and push factors from Figures 2 through 5was selected by respondents. respondents who
both relocated within the last 20 years and envi-sioned relocating again in the future were assignedto one of four groups, according to whether energyaspects were relevant in both location decisions, inonly the previous, only the future location decision,or in none of them.
Figure 6 displays the relevance of energyaspects as pull and push factors in relocation deci-sions in relation to the age of respondents and theirincome, respectively. in general, energy aspects aremore important for younger respondents and forlower income households. households that consid-ered energy-related aspects for their envisionedmove or for both the last and envisioned moves (aspush factors) are younger and have less income,with median net equivalent incomes below thepoverty line. households that considered energyaspects only for their last move or not at all areolder and have a higher income. For older andhigher income households, these aspects were notvery important, neither in previous nor in envisionedlocation decisions. Finally, numerous householdswere not assigned to any group because they eitherdid not move in the past and/or do not envision amove in the future. those households are alsoolder and have a mean income above the povertyline (not shown).
Figure 5. : Importance of energy aspects as a push factorfor an envisioned relocation; columns indicate number ofmentions, multiple answers possible, answers providedfrom households that are considering relocation within thenext five years.
Figure 6. Importance of energy related criteria in (re)location decisions as push and pull factors (see text), depending onthe age of respondents and households’ net equivalent income. The dotted line for household net equivalent income repre-sents the threshold of 952 Euros for poverty in Germany.
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the identified groups also differ in terms ofthe housing structure they currently occupy (Figure7). residents of multi-family houses name energy-related factors more often as a push factor than res-idents of the two other housing types. Especially forhouseholds in older MFh, energy aspects are apush factor for future relocations. as we show in thenext section, energy costs are comparatively highthere. Energy aspects were a pull factor everywhere,especially in the youngest MFh and sFh segments.For a future flat, today’s residents of older and post-war MFh will pay particular attention to this aspect.
regression tree analyses to explain thegroups reveal that the building structure type is,again, the second most influential aspect, afterincome-related variables for pull and push factors(top five variables for pull: household net equivalentincome (variable importance 12.04), building type(8.53), living area (7.90), age (4.97), and incomestatus (2.64); top five variables for push: incomestatus (9.52), household net equivalent income(9.40), building type (7.93), living area (6.48), andage (6.13)). this indicates the presence of somerelevant explanatory value of the building type thatcannot be explained by different age and incomegroups situated in these houses but, rather, may berelated to different attitudes that predominate in dif-ferent housing types or for differing conditions ofheating systems and insulation.
re la t ionsh ip of energy cost s to bu i ld -ing t ypes and soc ia l charac te r i s t i c s o fhouseholds
table 1 describes the current relationships of socialcharacteristics, housing segments and energy costs
in delitzsch. this picture is, partly, already an out-come of residential mobility choices of the last 20years and it is a starting point for (potential) mobil-ity to come according to the stated preferences justdescribed. because energy costs are likely to relateto buildings types rather than to administrativeunits, we consider the relationship of energy costsand urban space through the lens of buildingstypes.
the building types are clearly socially anddemographically segregated. socially, single familyand row houses (sFh/rh) are home to more afflu-ent households. in contrast, multi-family houses(MFh) provide accommodation for, on average,households of lower social status, with the excep-tion of newly built MFh, which are predominantlyinfill-developments in the inner city. additionally,within different types of single family and row hous-
Figure 7. Importance of energy-related criteria for push (left) and pull (right) groups, differentiated by building type. Thewidth of the columns represents the number of respondents living in a given structure type, whereas the height indicates thenumber of respondents in the formed groups.
Table 1. Social characteristics, energy costs, and energyburdens of households for selected housing types.
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es, social status declines with increasing buildingage. as was shown in Figure 1 (above), buildingtypes cluster in certain districts, so that this segrega-tion also has a distinctive spatial expression.housing costs vary significantly between housingtypes, with MFh from the 1970s and 1980s beingthe cheapest type of housing, both in net rents andEUr/m2. among multi-family housing, the post1994 flats are the most expensive ones. Within sin-gle family housing, monthly loan repayments arelowest in older buildings.
note: in line with german national statis-tical definitions, households with a net equivalenthousehold income below 952 Euros are definedas living below the poverty line. MFh: multi-familyhouse, sFh: single family house, rh: row house,hh: households. ***/**/* indicate statistically significant differenceswith p<0.001/0.01/0.05, respectively.
Energy costs of households vary accordingto the building types and their time of construction.absolute energy costs are lowest within the post-warMFh, both in the stock from the 1950s and 1960sand in the prefabricated MFh stock of the 1970sand 1980s. this is the building stock with the low-est social status and a relatively high average ageof residents. the highest energy costs are found inthe older sFh/rh. the high costs for households innewly built houses here are related to the larger sizeof the house; thus, energy prices/m2 in the newsFh/rh are much lower than in all other types ofhouses. the differences between households’ ener-gy costs are clearly rooted in the heating costs1rather than in the electricity costs, with the latter notshowing significant differences between differenttypes of buildings (table 1). however, these figuresshould not be over-interpreted, because only asmaller proportion of respondents in the survey pro-vided heating and electricity costs. this sub-samplehas a slightly higher educational level and a slight-ly higher income than respondents who did not pro-vide this information.
the share of energy costs in relation tohouseholds’ incomes is especially high for house-holds living in prefabricated, post-war multi-familyhouses built in the 1970s and 1980s. despite theirlower energy costs, they spend, on average, 11.6%of their monthly income on energy, thus exceedingthe 10% benchmark that has long been used toidentify energy-poor households (boardman 2010).another hotspot of energy poverty is to be found inparts of the older sFh/rh where relatively oldbuilding age coincides with lower incomes andhigh energy costs, see table 1. Fig. 8 shows thatsFh/rh residents with low incomes have the high-est energy burdens. this most resembles the find-ings in the Uk debate.
a regression analysis to explain the share of energycosts in net household income identifies householdnet equivalent income (variable importance 0.87,low income relating to a higher share of incomespend for energy), followed by building type (0.52,table 1) and number of persons, household type(e.g. single, couple with children, etc.) and livingarea (0.41, 0.36, and 0.30, respectively) as themost important variables.
impac t s o f p re v iou s and env i s ionedre loca t ions on res iden t ia l segregat i on
the findings presented so far clearly reveal segre-gated housing segments. in this last section, weexplore the movements that contributed to the pat-terns described and how these might develop in thefuture.
Figure 9 shows that high-income house-holds mainly moved into sFh/rh, or relatively newMFh, in the five years prior to the study. low-income households moved, instead, into MFh builtbetween 1946 and 1990, while very old multi-fam-ily houses were the target housing structures for alarger variety of income classes. For sFh/rh, aclear tendency of decreasing household incomeand increasing energy costs per m² is visible forincreasing age of the buildings.
as building types are clustered spatially,these selective moves also contribute to an increas-ing concentration of both lower and higher incomegroups. during the last 5 years, households livingbelow the poverty line mainly moved to the north-west of the city (see Figure 10), where the propor-tion of these households is higher than anywhereelse; up to 55% of households living in this area
Figure 8. Share of household income spent on energy(heating and electricity costs) for households living in differ-ent building types. Abbreviations: see Fig.1; PL = povertyline.
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have incomes below the poverty line. in this district,MFh built between 1949 and 1968 as well aslarge housing estates in panel construction domi-nate. as shown above, energy aspects are moreimportant for younger and low-income groups.here, these households find the most affordableand, at the same time refurbished housing whoseenergy demands are relatively low. therefore, one
can conclude that, in delitzsch, relocations are like-ly to contribute to a growing concentration of low-income households in these already less privilegedneighbourhoods. What is more, vacancies exist inthe northern and eastern MFh areas, due to theshrinking population, so that flats are accessible viathe market (based on expert-interviews), a circum-stance that might increase the dynamics of segre-gation. Potentially, the post-war MFh segments inthe north and East might be a destination for elder-ly households when leaving their owner-occupiedhome in the suburban areas, in search of betterinfrastructure access and lower housing – and ener-gy – costs. shrinkage is also involved here, becauseoften the children of elderly home-owners left theregion in search for jobs, so that an inner city loca-tion is, indeed, a choice for older empty nesters(based on field research diaries).
d iscu ssi on and conc lus ion
this paper aimed to analyse (1) the role of energy-related aspects in housing preferences and residen-tial mobility decisions, (2) to map out the existingrelationships between housing stock, social statusand energy costs and, (3) to explore thepotential processes of residential segregation thesemight induce.
We can confirm the assumption that, setagainst the background of rising energy prices that
Figure 9. In-migration into the different building types inDelitzsch in the past 5 years, according to income andbuilding types. The dotted line represents the threshold of952 Euros for income poverty.
Figure 10. Map for in-migration and relocations across districts in Delitzsch in the last 5 years according to income and dis-trict. Bar plots show movements to (above 0) and from (below 0) the area; the dashed line indicates the net migration, PL =poverty line.
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occurred in the past, energy aspects have becomemore decisive for residential choice, as earlier stud-ies suggested (bbr 2007, gdW 2008). Energy-related aspects are push as well as a pull factors,especially for low-income households; additionally,more low-income households state that they willpay attention to this in future housing choice. ourfindings thus contradict the assumptions of gerth etal.’s (2011) polarisation hypothesis, which wasbased on the idea that low-income householdschoose unrefurbished stock, because they are look-ing for cheap housing, whereas high-incomehouseholds tend to choose energy-efficient hous-ing. in our interpretation, low-income householdsseek to minimize housing costs in general, but dopay specific attention to heating systems and insu-lation. however, this does not answer the questionraised by holm (2011) whether displacement canbe a consequence of retrofitting measures. on thecontrary, energy efficiency measures might increasethe affordability of (formerly) non-refurbishedhomes. in such a case, relocations might be evenprevented through retrofitting. the decisive ques-tion here is the amount, the quality and the prize ofmeasures undertaken which by and large dependon the motivation of landlords and housing com-panies. in a housing market with a dominance ofrental housing like germany, tenants are in adependent position.
today, in delitzsch, more affluent house-holds are concentrated in newly built sFh/rh andMFh with relatively low energy costs. less affluenthouseholds are concentrated in post-war MFh andparts of older sFh/rh. thus, low-income house-holds occupy some of the least energy efficienthomes (especially older sFh, which resembles theproblems discussed in the Uk debate), but alsosome housing stock with relatively high energy effi-ciency (especially refurbished MFh from the 1970sand 1980s).
the data thus provide indications that ener-gy issues – as any other cost-related housing issue– are one among several driving factors for segre-gation. to understand the impact of energy criteria,attention must be paid to the multi-faceted ways inwhich energy demands of buildings, energy costs,or even energy renovations and their impact onlocation decisions, influence residential segrega-tion. here, further research would need to choosemethods that help to better understand the priori-ties, given the variety of factors in housing prefer-ences.
the segregation patterns resulting fromincreased attention to energy aspects depend onthe context, the specific setting, the variety of hous-ing segments available, their energy performance,and to what extent they are accessible for different
households. in delitzsch, the cheapest housing seg-ments happen to be refurbished and thus have agood energy performance. nevertheless, these seg-ments comprise the least privileged neighbour-hoods of the city. as we could show, especially low-income households have recently relocated to theseneighbourhoods. therefore, residential mobility hasfostered segregation and a spatial concentration oflow-income groups. to what extent energy aspectshave already contributed to this concentration can-not be derived from the available data. however,the data suggest that energy aspects will evenincrease segregation in the future.
if well-insulated flats with low basic rentsare concentrated in post-war multifamily houses –which is often the case in eastern german cities –energy costs might foster a concentration of low-income households in these types of districts. thismight be intensified by the fact that, in shrinkingcities in Eastern germany, these districts belong tothe buildings structures with the highest vacancyrates and, thus, flats are available here.
outlook
our study provides a first insight into the interrela-tions of energy costs, housing, and segregation ingermany. For future research, this interplay of ener-gy performance, households’ preferences andresources, and housing segments available oraccessible requires more attention and should bestudied in a variety of contexts, to better positionenergy performance of housing and energy costs inthe wider processes of residential segregation. second, studies on these interrelations should con-sider both the realised energy costs and the comfortlevel achieved by heating. numerous studies clear-ly indicate that low income households reduceenergy costs by changing their behaviour andreducing comfort (e.g. Cayla et al. 2012).therefore, energy costs cannot be used directly asindicators for energy efficiency of buildings andshould be accompanied by other measures.
third, for germany, a housing segmentthat deserves increased attention is older singlefamily houses. Many of these houses are owner-occupied. both the quantitative indicators of energycosts and self-reported burdens of energy costswere relatively high in this segment. low-incomehouseholds living in these houses might be trappedin a situation where energy costs are already high,increase as prices increase, and relocations tomore energy-efficient housing might not be anoption, due to the owner-occupier status and, diffi-culties to sell these houses in shrinking cities.Existing policies and funding do not provide a solu-
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*tion for these households yet. in general, policies ingermany are designed at a national level focussedon stimulating energetic refurbishments. a betterlink with housing policies sensitive to segregationprocesses is needed. to design funding instrumentsthat support refurbishments in the least privilegedneighbourhoods with the lowest energy standardswhile simultaneously preventing a rise in overallhousing cost for poor households to avoid dis-placement would be an integrated social and eco-logical policy option – but certainly a costly one.
acknow ledgements
the authors gratefully acknowledge the helpfulcomments of two reviewers on earlier versions ofthis manuscript. the survey mentioned in this textwas conducted as part of the project “Energy-effi-cient delitzsch: on the pathway towards the ener-gy-efficient, urban modern era”, funded by thegerman Ministry for Education and research (pro-ject no. 03sF0408).
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Van kEMPEn, r. 2002, The Partitioned City in History.Explanations for the Partitioned City. in: Marcuse, P. and van r.kempen (Eds) of states and Cities. the Partitioning of Urbanspace. oxford, Uk: oxford University Press, 35-56.
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author(s):
großmann, katrinhelmholtz Centre for Environmental research - UFZ,department of Urban and Environmental sociology,leipzig, germany Email:[email protected]
buchholz, Johan University of Jena, institute of sociology, Jena, germanyEmail:[email protected]
buchmann, Carstenhelmholtz Centre for Environmental research - UFZ,department of Computational landscape Ecology,leipzig, germanyEmail: [email protected]
hedtke, Christoph helmholtz Centre for Environmental research - UFZ,department of Urban and Environmental sociology,leipzig, germany Email: [email protected]
höhnke, Carolin helmholtz Centre for Environmental research - UFZ,department of Urban and Environmental sociology,leipzig, germany Email: [email protected]
schwarz, nina helmholtz Centre for Environmental research - UFZ,department of Computational landscape Ecology,leipzig, germanyEmail: [email protected]
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1 . i n t roduc t ion
hailed as ‘a revolutionary programme to bring ourbuildings up to date’ (hM government 2010: p.2),the UK government’s green Deal promised muchbut, as this paper will outline, may only serve to per-petuate existing social injustice and environmentaldegradation. a reflection of current infatuation withlow carbon, the green Deal was presented as partof the new energy Bill, introduced to Parliament onthe 8th December 2010, came into force inoctober 2012, and was officially launched in2013. Beginning by exploring the context of thegreen Deal and its constituent parts (section 2), thispaper may be viewed as an attempt to accept thegauntlet laid by Powells (2009: 2355) for housingresearcher and practitioners ‘to engage in thisontopolitical process of regulatory [energy] marketmaking and learning with an understanding of thegenerative, productive outcomes that might be pos-sible’.
the green Deal will entail fundamentalreform of domestic energy efficiency in the UK bymoving towards a market-led system of refurbish-
ment of the UK housing stock, away from the pre-vious current grant and subsidy approach. thispaper considers the potential legacy it may create,specifically in relation to: the distributional effects ofenergy policy and impact on the fuel-poor (section3); the housing system (section 4); and, the envi-ronment (section 5). reflected in the plethora ofscholarship on the issue (Bridge g. 2010, lovell h.2009, North P. 2010, walker g. and Cass N.2007, while a. et al., 2010), we are in an erawhen energy use is increasingly under scrutiny. thispaper contributes to such debate and concludes byproposing that the green Deal may move ratherthan remove existing social injustice whilst simulta-neously exacerbating environmentally detrimentalimpacts (section 6).
2 . s i tua t ing the green Dea l
growing attention has been devoted to examiningthe 40% contribution that the UK building stockmakes to greenhouse gas emissions, and thereforeclimate change (lovell h. 2004, 2009). of this, it
Louise Reid
Abstract
The UK government has recently implemented the Green Deal, a new pay-as-you-save policy which seeks to funda-
mentally reform the existing housing stock to make it more energy efficient. Regarded by its proponents as a ‘revolu-
tionary programme to bring our buildings up to date’ (HM Government 2010: 2), generate cash savings for house-
holders, and simultaneously yield environmental benefits by reducing energy consumption, it promises much. However,
there have been many critiques of the Green Deal from industry, environmental pressure groups and housing profes-
sionals. Moreover there has been very limited take up of Green Deal loans by householders, and those measures which
have been installed offer perhaps only minimal improvements in overall energy efficiency. This paper therefore con-
siders the potential generative and productive outcomes of the Green Deal by looking across three related issues:
households with low incomes and in fuel poverty; the potential impacts on elements of the housing system; and, the
extent of environmental benefits. The paper concludes by suggesting that the instead of being a revolutionary way to
improve the energy efficiency of the UK’s domestic building stock, the Green Deal may potentially perpetuate existing
social injustice and environmental degradation. The effort should, instead, focus on understanding how energy demand
is created in the first place (e.g. desire for larger homes, energy-hungry appliances, heating in every room) through
householders’ expectations and changing domestic practices.
Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Green Deal, UK, Policy, Housing.
‘Deal or No Deal?’: assessiNg the UK’s NewgreeN Deal .
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is estimated that 146 MtCo2e or 24% of UKCo2 emissions are generated by the UK domes-tic building stock, largely attributable to demandsmade from fossil fuels for heating and electricityconsumption (hM government 2010b). inFebruary 2009 the then secretary of state for ener-gy and climate change, ed Milliband announcedthat ‘we need to move from incremental steps for-ward on household energy efficiency to a com-prehensive national plan – the great Britishrefurb’, taking the first step in the long roadtowards the development of the green Deal.
since the coming to power of the UKcoalition government, the importance attached tothis issue has intensified; a reflection of the ascen-dancy of the ‘low carbon’ agenda (North P. 2010,while a. et al., 2010). this was manifest in theenergy Bill 2011 which seeks to tackle barriers toinvestment in energy efficiency, enhance energysecurity, and enable investment in low carbonenergy supplies (hM government 2010c).Prominent amongst the measures to achieve thisis the green Deal policy (hereafter referred to as‘the deal’). the deal seeks to create a frameworkthrough which private firms can be enabled ‘tooffer consumers energy efficiency improvementsto their homes at no upfront cost, recouping pay-ments through energy bills’ (hM government2010:5). it is intended that the deal will contributeto meeting the 34% reduction in emissions (fromthe 1990 level by 2020) target (hM government2009), in addition to improving the lived experi-ence of householders by insulating and draft proof-ing buildings. Moreover, and espoused as equallyimportant, is the potential to promote growth ingreen industry by creating jobs and developingdemand for new energy efficiency technologies(hM government 2010).
the central premise of the deal is thatreductions in energy use incurred by the improve-ment of the building’s energy efficiency will gener-ate cost savings on heating and electricity bills suchthat the costs of installation or loan are met by thesavings made on monthly bills (pay-as-you-save)(hM government 2010). Critical to this plan is theattribution of responsibility for these improvementsto the bill payer rather than the building owner, rep-resenting a step-change from existing approacheswhere the building owner (often with a subsidy) typ-ically meets the majority of the up front costs.importantly, this means that the obligation remainswith the bill payer, so that if and when they moveout, the responsibility passes to the new occupier,regardless of whether they own or rent the proper-ty.
the deal was cloaked with promises ofconsumer protection based on the Consumer
Credit act 1974 and other regulatory safeguards(hM government 2010). For example, the energyPerformance Certificate (ePC) will be used to pro-vide the assessment from which improvements inenergy efficiency will be determined, whilst existingobligations towards vulnerable members of societyimplemented by the ‘big six’ energy suppliers(British gas, scottish & southern, scottishPower,eDF, Npower and e.oN) will continue to be usedvia the energy Companies obligation (eCo) (hMgovernment 2010). Cementing such protection isthe ‘golden rule’ which states that the ‘expectedfinancial savings must be equal to or greater thanthe costs attached to the energy bill’ in order for theloan and installation to commence (hMgovernment 2010: 5).
a first read of the deal does, therefore, pro-vide grounds for optimism as a policy which willsimultaneously reduce greenhouse emissions andtherefore contribute to reducing climate changewhilst improving the lived experience for the 4.5million UK households that experienced fuel pover-ty in 2008 (hM government 2010d). howeverthere has been significant criticism from organisa-tions such as ageUK, wwF, and Friends of theearth, reflecting serious concerns about the abilityof the deal to deliver such promises. such concernis perhaps reflected in the take up of the deal.according to the government’s own most recent
Chat 1. Number of Green Deal Plans in unique properties, cumu-
lative totals at the end of each month. Source: HM Government(2014: 8).
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idstatistics, the deal had a very slow start, with only626 households having measures installed via thedeal.
in addition, the nature of the measuresinstalled has been relatively limited, with thereplacement of boilers dominating at 32%, which itcould be argued, is likely not to revolutionise theUK’s housing stock since more radical insulationtreatment is what is required.
on the basis of much criticism and rela-tively low uptake, and, in an era when scholars arecalling for greater conceptualisation of low carbonand environmental futures (Bridge g. 2010, NorthP. 2010, while a. et al., 2010), it seems appropri-ate to contemplate what the deal represents and forwhom.
3 . low i ncome households , f ue l pover -t y and the g reen dea l
Much as been made of rising energy prices and theconcept of fuel poverty (Jenkins D. 2010, Feng K.et al., 2010), its purported causes including lowoutside temperatures, high energy tariffs, and lowhousehold incomes (Jenkins D. 2010). since 2003domestic energy bills have risen by around 120%,leading to an increase of UK households in fuelpoverty from 2 million in 2002 to 5.4 million in2010 (Nea 2011). energy tariffs are viewed as aparticularly important element of fuel poverty whereeven ‘a 1% rise in fuel price is likely to result inanother 40,000 households entering fuel poverty’(house of Commons 2009 in Jenkins D. 2010:832). given that 5.4 million households in fuel
Table 1. Number of measures installed using Green Deal Finance. Source: HM Government (2014:19).
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poverty represent approximately 20% of the esti-mated number of UK households (oNs 2011), thedistributional effect of energy costs therefore hassignificance for the whole of UK society
Previous policies which sought to removehouseholds from a position of fuel poverty includedthe warm Front scheme and the Carbon emissionsreduction target (Cert) which provided means-tested or disability-related subsidy for home energyefficiency improvements. Neither the warm Frontscheme nor Cert will remain under the deal andwill instead be replaced by the energy Companyobligation (eCo) which will run alongside theexisting non-means tested winter Fuel Payment andwarm home Discount scheme. the energy Bill willput in place legislation to incentivise energy com-panies to channel part of their spending into eCowhich will be used to provide additional support forthose on low incomes and support changes to themore expensive hard-to-treat homes (hMgovernment 2010). Under eCo (which runs untilMarch 2015), energy companies will be required tospend approximately £1.3bn per year to meet theobligations.
whilst increasing global energy prices arehaving an undeniable effect on the number ofhouseholds in fuel poverty, the paradox is that thedevelopment of energy policies intensifies this asenergy utility companies pass increased costs oflegislation on to the consumer. analysis by less(2010) has, for example, predicted that by 2020energy policies will represent additional costs of£16billion per year to energy bills, equivalent to 4pon the basic rate of income tax. Further, and asPowells (2009: 2350) has articulated, policieswhich pre-date the energy Bill already marginalise‘those on low incomes but not on benefits and liv-ing in properties with solid walls, and privaterenters’. the deal and eCo thus add to a range ofpolicies that are being paid for by obligations andlevies, the costs of which are put directly ontohousehold energy electricity bills regardless of anability to pay. those households in fuel poverty are,in effect, paying for the benefits that they mightreceive.
this paradox is compounded by the realitythat those on low incomes or in fuel poverty may beunlikely to benefit financially from energy efficiency(Nea 2011): ‘fuel poor households may not savemoney because many do not have the heatingturned on long enough to heat their homes suffi-ciently, so energy efficiency means they will enjoywarmer homes, not cash savings’ (hM government2010b: 15). indeed, the government have gone asfar as to announce that they will not provide anyguarantees that under the deal bills will fall for indi-vidual consumers (hM government 2010).
Moreover, given that households with lowerincomes may also have existing debt problems, bedebt adverse and/or have a poor credit rating sorepresent a risk to the installer through loandefaults, which may mean that they may not receivethe necessary support to make their homes moreenergy efficient (Nea 2011).
the main beneficiaries of the deal in finan-cial terms will therefore be middle to high incomehouseholds and not those on the lowest incomes orwho live in fuel-poor households. the interpretationof the deal in this way, particularly in relation to thepotential distributional (dis)benefits it may createtalks to existing debates on social and environmen-tal justice and lends support to calls for academicsto consider how energy governance influences ‘theways in which marginality is moved rather thanremoved’ (Powells D. 2009: 2349). as the pro-ceeding discussions outline, the issue of fuel pover-ty may not be the only way in which existinginequality may be moved rather than removed bythe deal.
4 . the hous ing sy s tem, the g reen dealand cumulat i ve impac t s
the environmental impact of the UK housing sys-tem has for many years been the subject of atten-tion (lovell h. 2004, Priemus h. 2005), scrutinyhaving intensified in the ‘new realism of climatechange’ (while a. et al., 2010: 82). as a conse-quence, the sector has borne witness to the prolificdevelopment of legislation and regulation, theCode for sustainable homes being one suchexample (BreeaM 2010). the deal will thus add toan array of existing regulations with anticipatedimpacts on: the type and distribution of housingstock across the UK; actors in the housing system;and, the housing market. indeed, as a system whichplays an important and central role in everyday life,where change in any one part may generate pro-found downstream impacts on society and the envi-ronment, consideration of the deal’s potentialimpacts on this system is both timely and necessary.
a legacy of old and hard-to-heat homeshas led to the development of an energy and ther-mally inefficient housing stock with approximately22% of the english stock categorized as having apoor saP rating1 (hM government 2010b: 16).Perpetuated by the range of outside temperaturesexperienced across the UK, the geographical distri-bution of thermally inefficient homes is of concern.For instance, there is a differential of some £120 inannual heating bills between similar houses in thewest of england and the west of scotland (scottishParliament Committee 2011 Col 4730). the cold-
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ider scottish winters and large proportion of scottishsolid wall and timber frame houses (Jenkins D.2010) mean innovative and more expensive effi-ciency installations are needed in these areas.indeed, in rural areas of the UK where there areadded difficulties of accessing the expertise andtechnology required, questions begin to emergeabout whether a market-led policy is useful. will themarket extend into and provide services for theseareas, or might it instead privilege easy-to-treat andclose-to-market homes? this is a point of consider-able concern in scotland and one which has beenthe focus of sizable parliamentary discussion(scottish Parliamentary Committee 2011).
in addition to housing stock concerns, theway in which the responsibility for the repayment ofthe energy efficiency measures lie with the bill payerand what this may mean for housing system actorshas been the focus of some attention. as it stands,the energy Bill will put in place a legislative frame-work operational from 2015 onwards whichallows: tenants to insist that a landlord agrees to‘reasonable’ energy efficiency improvements beingundertaken; and, local authorities to force land-lords to improve the worst-performing homes (hMgovernment 2010). it is anticipated that the socialhousing sector (shs) and private rental sector (Prs)will be those most affected by the deal, arguablydeveloped with the owner occupier sector in mind.
starting with the shs, the vast majority ofsocial housing schemes are run by non-profit hous-ing associations which manage the investment andday-to-day operation of the scheme (Mcintyre Z.and McKee K. 2008). a particular concern of thehousing sector, reflected in a submission from thescottish Federation of housing associations to ascottish Parliamentary Committee, is thus the‘potential clash between the green deal being ledby the consumer or occupant and wider responsi-bilities, not to mention the project and stock man-agement skills that housing associations and coun-cils have’ (scottish Parliament 2011 Col 4735).that is, there is a potential difficulty for shs in as faras housing associations may find it difficult to con-trol installations, raising amongst others, the ques-tion of who is responsible for the upkeep and main-tenance post-installation: ‘we have lots of questionsabout the warranties that will come with the prod-ucts that are fitted…what kind of warranty mightsomeone in a house to which external cladding isfitted be looking for? if the cladding starts to fall offafter five or 10 years, who will they go back to?’(scottish Parliament 2011 Col 4735). it appearsthe deal may create a tension between shs ownersand occupiers adding to the already difficult cir-cumstances in which shs operate.
a further sector anticipated to be impacted
by the deal is the Prs, which is widely reported tocontain the highest proportion of homes thermallyinefficient homes (hM government 2010b, Jenkins2010, Nea 2011). as outlined, the deal will con-tain specific legislation to deal with the Prs andalthough the government recognizes that thepotential for uptake is likely to be lower in this sec-tor (hM government 2010b), there is some causefor concern about who may win and who may lose– the tenant or the owner. Undoubtedly, the ten-ant’s thermal comfort will improve as a conse-quence of energy efficiency improvements and thisis not to be belittled. however, if as Powells (2009)suggests, one is to consider the generative out-comes, or law of unintended consequences, onemay look at the longer term impacts of the dealand how those may prove advantageous to thelandlord rather than the tenant, particularly infinancial terms.
although there is a lack of consensus sur-rounding the effect that energy efficiency improve-ments may make to the market value of a home inthe UK, on balance it appears that energy efficienthomes may sell or rent for higher amounts, withimplications for both the Prs and owner occupiedhousing sectors. a recent study commissioned bythe royal institution of Chartered surveyors (riCs)suggested that in the Netherlands, when all otherfactors were held constant, homebuyers were will-ing to pay a premium for homes that have beenlabeled as more energy efficient (Brounen D. andKok K. 2010). similar findings were reported in anaustralian study where ‘‘location, location, eer’[energy efficiency rating] has replaced the tradition-al real estate mantra of ‘location, location, loca-tion’’ (Department of the environment, water,heritage and the arts 2008, content in parenthesisadded).
Both the Netherlands and australia haveestablished energy marketing regimes unlike theUK, which only implemented the ePC in 2008.indeed, riCs are in the process of investigatinghow the UK valuation system may account forincreased value according to energy efficiency per-formance, which until now riCs members have notdone (riCs 2010). accordingly it is likely that ener-gy efficiency performance may be reflected in UKhouse values. extending this logic, an implication ofthe deal for the Prs may be that tenants pay forenergy efficiency improvements but landlords ben-efit from the additional value this generates. whilsttenants may not be any worse off in financial terms,landlords, without paying a penny, will recouppounds either when selling or by increasing rents.the deal therefore presents some potentially exten-sive implications for the UK housing system, notleast because it is a sector which has important
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wider, subversive effects important for social equity.the discussion now turns to consider the extent towhich it may also impact on the environment.
5 . e ne rg y con sump t i o n and ene rg ye f f i c iency – does the env i ronment bene f i t?
a strong premise of the deal is that by encouraginghouseholds to improve energy efficiency, energydemand from the domestic sector will reduce, caus-ing emissions to fall and mitigate predicted climatechange impacts. whilst this is a noble idea basedon seemingly logical assumptions, it directly con-tradicts growing evidence which suggests the oppo-site is happening (McManus a. et al., 2010,wilkinson et al., 2007). indeed, the concernaround energy behaviours, and environmentalbehaviours more generally, is a dynamic and grow-ing area of inquiry (hand M. et al., 2007,hargreaves t., et al., 2010, reid l. et al., 2010,seyfang g. 2010, southerton D. et al., 2011).
the government stated when launching thedeal that energy savings ‘cannot be guaranteed bygovernment since no-one except individuals andbusinesses themselves can control how much ener-gy they actually consume in their own property’(hM government 2010: 6). this statement isrecognition of the very complex and messy ways inwhich household energy demand is produced andreproduced. For instance, ‘efficiency gains havetypically gone hand in hand with economic growth,rising expectations, social changes, and populationincrease’ such that the ‘use of energy servicesgrows at a faster pace than improvements in effi-ciency’ (wilkinson P et al., 2007:1177 and 1176respectively). these findings have been supportedby McManus et al., (2010) who reported thatalthough saP ratings have risen over the last 30years, there had not been a corresponding reduc-tion in energy use. in addition, recent work in theNetherlands looking at the gap between designand performance (santin o. 2011), have not onlyhighlighted shortcomings in the calculation ofpotential savings, but have demonstrated thatdwellings with high ePC ratings consume more thanpredicted (Majcen D. et al., 2013). in short, greaterefficiency has led to greater consumption (steg l.and Vlek C. 2009), conceptualised as the ‘reboundeffect’ (sorrell s. 2007).
when rebound effects are sufficiently large,these are termed ‘backfire’ events (sorrell s. 2007:v) and there appears to be increasing evidence thatthis is the case with energy consumption (McManusa. et al., 2010). the predicted rebound effect of thedeal is estimated by the government to be 15%,
meaning that 85% of the expected energy savingswill be achieved. whilst there has been substantialdiscussion about the size, impact, and calculationof rebound effects (sorrell s. 2007) which remainout with the remit of this paper, it is important toacknowledge that the rebound estimates for thedeal have been criticized for being low (Jowit J.2010). indeed, the 15% estimate is below theaccepted standard used by the eU environmentdirectorate of 20-80% (Jowit J. 2010). Moreover,personal communication between Jowit (2010)and the Department for energy and ClimateChange revealed that in reality the governmentexpects the effect to be between 15-40%. there is,therefore, a very real danger that the deal main-tains the existing fallacy, by appearing successful inchanging purchasing behaviour (energy efficiencytechnologies are installed) without correspondingreductions in environmental impact (cf. southertonD. et al., 2011).
in terms of the effectiveness of the efficien-cy technologies themselves, concern has beenexpressed that theoretical levels of performance orsavings are rarely validated post-installation (gill Z.et al., 2010), meaning that assumptions about howmuch energy will be saved may be invalid.Furthermore, evidence is emerging that household-ers find methods to bypass energy efficiency solu-tions (examples include uninstalling devices thatimpede water flow from shower heads), in order toprevent the curtailment of their activities (gill Z. etal., 2010). whilst this may explain, in part, why effi-ciency measures are not leading to reductions inconsumption overall, it also serves to highlight theproblem of developing ‘smart’ solutions withoutsystemic engagement with the way in which suchtechnologies are socially and culturally embedded(shove e. 2010). an additional potential limitationof the deal is that longer term changes in behaviourmay not be fostered (thogerson J. and Moller B.2008), and worse, that such incentives may serve tolegitimatise the behaviour being discouraged(gneezy U. and rustichini a. 2000). the potentialgenerative and downstream effects of the deal onthe environment may thus be great. it is clear thatthe fundamental assumptions linking increased effi-ciency to reduced consumption are flawed, andthat the rebound effects of the policy may simplydisplace rather than reduce detrimental environ-mental impacts.
6 . Dea l or no dea l? : some conc lud ingthought s
Vociferous calls have been made for housingresearchers and practitioners to better consider,
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idengage with, and conceptualise environmentalfutures (Bridge g. 2010, lovell h. 2009, North P.2010, Powells g 2009, walker g. and Cass N.2007, while a. et al., 2010). the deal, an ambi-tious policy which, by seeking to fundamentallyrefurbish the UK housing stock, may result in radi-cal changes for householders, the housing system,and the environment, presents a timely opportunityto react to such calls. this paper reflects wider crit-icisms surrounding the low carbon agenda (whilea. et al., 2010), and is an articulation of the poten-tial dangers such an agenda, through the deal,may promote.
whilst laudable in its ambition to improvethe lived experience of UK householders, there is atangible danger, as this paper has outlined, that thedeal perpetuates existing social injustice and envi-ronmental degradation. For instance, there is aparticular risk that by passing responsibility to ener-gy utility companies, the problem of fuel poverty willbe privatized. Fuel poor households living in remoteand rural areas of the UK will be especially likely tofeel the costs of increased (policy-induced) energytariffs and at the same time suffer as a consequenceof being far-from-market. evaluation of the regres-sive nature of the deal therefore brings to the forequestions about how successful current policydirections may be in resolving problems related toinequality, injustice and marginality.
a second contention of this paper was thatthe deal is likely to induce asymmetric effects in thehousing system, impacting more favorably uponsome sectors and actors than others. Particularconcern was expressed with the way in whichchanges to the Prs will not be progressive as thosewho already own rental property may benefit fromnet financial gains at the cost of those less fortu-nate. Moreover, the shs, which provides a vital ser-vice for the most vulnerable groups of society, mayfind themselves challenged by the deal, adding totheir already difficult workload. Compounding con-cerns around the potential implications of the poli-cy with regard to social inequality are those relatedto ‘backfire’ and the fallacy the deal may createaround energy consumption reductions. in an erawhen ever more attention is devoted to the wayenergy demands evolve there is a genuine necessi-ty to develop more sophisticated policy approach-es. arguably, those which seek to engender moresystemic engagement with society at large byexploring how energy demands are created in thefirst place, perhaps by focusing on the developmentand change in domestic practices and expectationsover time (e.g. the desire for larger homes, moreappliances cf. hand M. et al., 2007), rather thansimply ‘nudging’ householders into particular waysof acting present a more fruitful avenue to pursue
than one which simply encourages business-as-usual consumption as the deal does.
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acknowledgemen t:
this work was supported by the UK economic and socialresearch Council [grant number es/K009516/1]. Mythanks to graeme sandeman for help with the illustra-tions. thanks also to henk Visscher and his group atotB Delft for supporting my visits there.
author(s):
louise reid, Department of geography and sustainable Development, University of st andrews, st andrews, Fife,KY16 9al, [email protected] and Delft Universityof technology, Faculty of architecture and the Builtenvironment, otB research for the Built environment,Jaffalaan 9, Delft, Netherlands.
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INTRODUCTION
The EU's strategy for tackling climate change focus-es on three targets for 2020 (also known as 20-20-20): cutting greenhouse emissions by 20%, draw-ing 20% of energy from renewable sources andreducing energy use by 20%. These goals havebeen established through legislation at the level ofboth the EU and member states. The EU housingsector is considered crucial in attaining these ener-gy efficiency and reduction targets. There will be ashift in focus from newly built dwellings towards ren-ovation of the existing housing stock. An increase inthe number of renovation projects can be expected.This will involve a large increase in the number ofpeople employed by construction companies andup the supply chain. New ways of working will alsoaffect the qualifications, skills and knowledge thatare needed to carry out these new activities.
This article is based on the results of a partof the Neujobs research project financed by theEuropean Commission, under the 7th FrameworkProgramme. The objective of Neujobs is to analyse
future possible developments of the Europeanlabour market(s) under the main assumption thatEuropean societies are now facing or preparing toface some main transitions that will have a majorimpact on employment. The sub field that is beingconsidered here is the relation between large scaleenergy renovations and employment within theconstruction sector. The results of an exploratoryresearch project carried out within Neujobs (Meijeret al. 2012, Meijer and Visscher, 2013) are sum-marized in this article. The main research methodused was desk-top research, analysing relevant EUpolicy documents, explorative studies for the wholeEU and European comparative studies (for anoverview of the sources used see ‘references’). Inorder to find additional sources and backgroundinformation partners within our network and rele-vant organisations within Europe were contacted(e.g. the Architects' Council of Europe (ACE), theExecutive Agency for Competitiveness & Innovation(EACI), the European Builders Confederation(EBC), the Buildings Performance Institute Europe(BPIE) and the Bremer Energie Institut (BEI)).
Frits Meijer and Henk Visscher
Abstract
The European Commission and EU member states have prioritised the renovation of the existing housing stock as a
means of achieving their energy-efficiency targets. As buildings account for 40% of Europe’s energy consumption and
much of this is used in the residential sector a major breakthrough could be realized here. Despite the fact that energy
saving targets have been prioritized in EU and national policy programme’s, progress is slow. The actual rate and extent
of renovations are by fare not enough to achieve the targets. Although the necessity of energy savings is acknowledged
by institutional investors in housing, housing associations, individual homeowners and occupants, it appears to be dif-
ficult to get sufficient support for energy efficiency renovations. The current economic situation is an additional barrier
preventing large scale investments in energy renovating the housing stock.
This article connects the realisation of energy efficiency goals with the creation of jobs in the EU. The shift from new-
build to renovation will have considerable effects on employment in especially the construction industry and the quali-
fications required by the workforce. Studies show that for every €1 million investment in the existing building stock in
the form of energy renovation work, 12 to 17 new jobs could be created. Potentially this could lead to may new jobs.
However, there are many uncertainties in these calculations. Are these direct or indirect jobs, what sectors would ben-
efit, are these jobs created within the EU and what would be the net effect on the labour market? Nonetheless these
uncertainties, the positive employment effects will prevail. A new and ambitious investment programme in the housing
sector could not only improve the energy performance of the sector but create 100.000’s of valuable jobs at a time
when these are seriously needed.
Keywords: Energy Efficiency Policy, European Union, Construction Industry, Housing Stock.
UPGRADING ENERGY EFFICIENT HOUSING ANDCREATING JOBS: IT WORKS BOTH WAYS
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insight in the likely impacts of energy renovation ofthe existing housing stock on jobs in the construc-tion industry. Relevant background information ispresented on the European housing stock (section2), the current renovation rate and depth (section 3)and the consequences for the construction industryin Europe (sections 4 and 5). Section 6 presents themain conclusions.
CHARACTER IST ICS OF THE HOUSINGSTOCK
As stated before the housing sector is very impor-tant in attaining the energy saving targets set by theEU and its member states. The building stock in theEU is responsible for 40% of overall energy use and36% of CO2 emissions (Itard and Meijer 2008).
The housing stock in the EU accounts for75% of the floor space the total building stock(BPIE, 2011). There are currently around 230 mil-lion dwellings across the 27 EU member states(Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations,2010; Cecodhas, 2011). The majority of thesedwellings are in multifamily residential buildings. Inthe second half of the 20th century, there was enor-mous growth in the housing stock, which largelydetermined the housing stock we have today.
The energy performance of a dwelling canbe closely related to its age (unless it has under-gone a major energy performance renovation). Inthe EU-15 (plus Switzerland) two-thirds of the hous-ing stock is post-WWII (Eurostat, 2010). However inmost countries around 50% to 60% of the currentstock was built before 1970 and as such predatesenergy-saving regulations in the EU by some con-siderable time.
It is also evident that all countries experi-enced a major construction boom after WW-II andwith a few exceptions, the housing stock more thandoubled in this period. Significant country-by-coun-try variations are also evident.
Compared to the post-war growth, thebeginning of the 21st century shows a completelydifferent situation. In most countries, the construc-tion of new housing has fallen below an annualproduction rate of 1% of the existing housing stock,and often well below this (e.g. Itard and Meijer,2008; BPIE, 2011). As a consequence, the influ-ence of new construction on the quality and quan-tity of the existing stock is negligible. According tothe Green Jobs Initiative in cooperation withInternational Institute for Labour Studies (2012),about 75% of the buildings that will make up thehousing stock in 2050 already have been builttoday.
The older part of the housing stock in par-ticular is already facing increasing deficiencies andshortcomings. The exact extent of these problemshowever is unknown since reliable comparativedata on the volume of the qualitative backlog isscarce. Nonetheless, the available data shows anon-going need for reinvestment, in particular whenit comes to energy efficiency (Itard and Meijer2008). The fact that the current housing stock willage considerably means that these problems mayescalate significantly. So there can be no doubt ofthe need for large-scale energy renovations in thehousing stock.
In addition to age, other characteristics ofthe housing stock can also greatly influence thesuccess of efforts to improve the energy perfor-mance of existing dwellings. Building type andtenure are major determining factors in relation todecision-making relating to energy-saving mea-sures and their cost/energy effectiveness.
With respect to the distribution of single-family dwellings and apartments, the various statis-tical sources agree that there is a great deal of vari-ation. In Ireland, the United Kingdom, Greece andNorway almost 90% of the dwelling stock is madeup of single-family houses, for example. At theother end of the spectrum there are countries likeSpain, Estonia and Latvia where around 70 percent of the dwelling stock is located in apartmentbuildings (BPIE, 2011; EC, various years).
Ownership has a bearing on the willing-ness and ability to renovate, and thus on the rateand success of renovations and the extent of theenergy-savings measures that may be included inrenovation projects. BPIE (2011) collected datafrom 17 countries on the division between owner-occupied properties and those rented from privatelandlords, public landlords or a mixture of the two.In all countries, at least 50% of residential buildingsare owner-occupied.
C U RRE NT RE NO VAT IO N RA TE ANDDEPTH
There generally seems to be perfect agreement thatprogress in realising energy-efficiency goals is lag-ging behind expectations. The EC concludes thatthe reduction in energy consumption is estimated tobe only 9% in 2020 (instead of the intended 20%reduction) (EC 2012). This lack of progress is dueto the following reasons:
• Market failures (e.g. split incentives; informationand knowledge failures; lack of adequate train-ing and skills throughout the building sector,etc.).
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• Financial barriers (e.g. initial investment costsare high; uncertainty about initial costs and pay-back periods; lack of awareness and knowledgeamong financiers).
• Regulatory framework (e.g. lack of legislationand enforcement; frequent changes in policyprograms and budgets).
As well as these arguments, there is a growingawareness that in many cases the relationshipbetween the (theoretical) energy performance of adwelling and the actual energy use can be quite dif-ferent to what is expected. Actual energy use is alsorelated to the preferences and lifestyle of the occu-pants. Studies in the Netherlands (Visscher et al.2012.) appeared to show that energy use in ener-gy-inefficient houses was much lower than expect-ed, while in very energy-efficient houses it wassomewhat higher. The concern that improving theenergy efficiency will lead to lower energy savingsand savings on the energy costs can have a seriousimpact on the feasibility of future renovations.
In order to realise the ambitious energy-saving goals set for the European building andhousing stock, member states and the EuropeanUnion urgently have to find solutions for the barri-ers described above.
Our knowledge of the actual rate andextent of renovation work is a decisive factor whenforecasting what will happen to the energy perfor-mance of the existing housing stock and the effectsof this on job creation in the construction industryover the coming decades. When it comes to pro-ducing current and reliable data on these factors,there is still much that is lacking. However, on thebasis of the evidence that can be provided, it seemsthat the number and magnitude of renovations (themeasures that are being taken) are falling short ofexpectations.
The EC (2012) estimates that approximate-ly 3% of the building stock is being renovated eachyear. A study by Itard and Meijer (2008) shows thatreliable information on renovation activities inEuropean counties is very limited. On the basis ofour knowledge of the Dutch situation, however, arenovation rate of 3% is far too optimistic.Moreover the renovation rate alone says nothingabout the extent of the measures being taken.Additionally, there is a structural lack of compre-hensive information on the costs and savings ofbuilding renovations.
The Buildings Performance Institute ofEurope (BPIE 2011) has examined this matter ingreater depth and distinguishes the following levelsof renovation:
- Minor renovations: resulting in a reduction inenergy consumption of between 0% and 30%.
- Moderate renovations: resulting in energyreductions in the range of 30%-60%.
- Extensive renovations: leading to an energyreduction of 60% - 90%.
- Almost Zero-Energy Building renovations: lead-ing energy consumption and carbon emissionlevels to close to zero.
BPIE (2011) also concludes that little data is avail-able about the number of renovation projects beingundertaken, their extent, costs, effects, or indeedtrends in renovation rates. Most estimates of reno-vation rates (other than those relating to singleenergy-saving measures) are between 0.5% and2.5% of the building stock per year (see Itard andMeijer, 2008). These rates typically reflect the activ-ity of the preceding few years, which in some casesare linked to special circumstances during thoseyears. These special circumstances include the exis-tence of a renovation programme or the deploy-ment of a certain policy instrument. All in all, these‘known’ renovation rates are almost certainly notstandard practice in a country. BPIE (2011)assumes that the current prevailing renovation rateacross Europe is around 1%. According to BPIE,85% of all current renovations could be charac-terised as ‘minor’, 10% as ‘moderate’ and 5% as‘extensive’. The number of renovations leading tonearly zero-energy buildings is considered ‘negligi-ble’.
EFFECTS ON JOB GROWTH
Numerous studies have looked into the possibleeffects on job creation if the EU member statesmanage to achieve their energy-saving goals forthe housing/building stock. Some studies (predom-inantly carried out by the EC) express the expectednumber of new jobs in total numbers, varying from:
• 280,000 to 450.000 (2003-2020; EC 2003.in BPIE 2011);
• 1,000,000 (2005-2015; EC 2005);
• 1,400,000 (2011-2015; EC 2011);
• 850,000 (2011-2020; EC 2012);
• 760,000 to 1,480,000 (2012-2020; Naess-Schmidt et al. 2012).
The reasoning and assumptions behind these num-bers is not always clear and there is clear diver-gence in their findings, although they presumablyrelate to the investment needed to realise the for-mulated energy-saving goals. What is clear without
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schera doubt, though, is that the outcomes are substan-
tially different. The same applies to the job creation pre-
dictions relating to an investment of €1 million. Instudies carried out at the European level, outcomesvary between 12 and 19 new jobs through energyrenovation goals. When interpreting these num-bers, it is important to remember that many factorsare involved. The necessary investment can be splitinto costs for raw materials, end-ready productsand labour costs for design, engineering and on-site construction. This also affects jobs in the build-ing products supply industry. Not all jobs will be created in the country where themoney is invested. If Europe chooses to install solarpanels on a massive scale, producers outside theEU could reap a significant benefit from this.
Indirect jobs will also be created outsidethe construction industry. An important variable isthe way employment effects are calculated: are theygross or net employment effects? Investment inenergy renovation work may have a positive effecton employment in the construction sector but couldat the same time impact negatively on investment inother sectors. Other factors to consider are whethersales tax is included in the calculations and whetherthe positive effect of government revenues (e.g. tax,unemployment benefits) on new jobs considered?
It can also be expected that there will bejob losses. When less energy is used this probablywill affect the sector that generates and distributesenergy to the households. Especially the renewableenergy industry will benefit from the transition. We should also question the net effect on thelabour market if more is invested this sector. Wherewill the money come from? Governments couldequally decide to spend this money in other sectors,which might have more impact on the labour mar-ket. The same goes for individual homeowners. Ifthey invest more in their house, this could lead toreduced spending in other areas.
Differences between EU member statesalso should be taken into consideration. Thenational institutional framework, the constructionsector, the supply sectors, industries and occupa-tions, labour productivity and existing skills, educa-tion levels and training practices all divergebetween EU member states.
In a scenario analysis carried out by BPIE,an average of 17 new jobs per €1 million investedwas assumed. On this basis, several pathways forthe number of jobs created through building reno-vation between 2012 and 2050 were calculated.These ranged between:
• 200,000 new jobs (hardly any acceleration ofthe current rate and extent of the renovation
work being carried out);
• up to 1,100,000 new jobs (with a very rapidacceleration).
The BPIE analysis appears to be a useful basis topredict the future development of jobs. Besidesthese ‘new’ jobs’ created by energy renovation ofthe housing stock, the construction industry will alsostay in need for a workforce to built new houses.Although the last decade the relative importance ofnewly built houses is only 1% of the amount ofhouses that has been already built, the constructionof new houses will be needed in the future. This andthe expected growth of the maintenance and reno-vation sector will lead to an overall employmentgrowth in the construction industry. However thisgrowth could be toned down by the current parlousstate of the construction sector in many Europeancountries following the economic and financialcrises of recent years. Throughout the sector(designers, architects, construction firms, builders,etc.), employment is under threat and many work-ers have already lost their jobs. At the same time,the housing market has ground to a halt in a num-ber of EU member states. The number of newly builthouses has declined dramatically in countries likethe Netherlands. If this situation improves over thecoming decade, parts of the growth in employmentcould be aimed at producing new-build houses (tostimulate the housing market again) and probablynot directly at improving the energy performance ofexisting dwellings. But this in itself could stimulatethe construction sector, especially the renovation ofthe existing building stock. Progress towards achiev-ing the ambitious energy targets set for the existingbuilding stock is lagging behind, while the potentialfor job creation could be huge. Measures taken tostimulate the energy renovation of the buildingstock to get the economy moving again will alsoimprove the energy efficiency of the building stockas an important by-product.
DEMANDS ON WORKFORCE
As the ILO (2011-a, 2011-b) states, reliable dataon (the lack of) skills and qualifications is scarcewithin the EU. Nonetheless, shortages of skills ingeneral are mentioned as an important bottleneckwhen implementing energy-saving strategies. Thiscould lead to a slower, less efficient, more costlyand less effective energy renovation process of thebuilding stock.
The labour shortages have both qualitativeas well as quantitative aspects. Studies state thatemployers still face difficulties in finding qualifiedpeople to undertake certain jobs in this field. With
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respect to the construction industry itself, thereappears generally to be shortages of skills, the mainreason being that as new (energy saving) technolo-gies and practices are introduced or changed, pre-viously satisfactory skill sets are no longer ade-quate. Many workers will require skills upgrade.This applies not only to construction workers, butalso to professional staff such as architects andengineers. Another observation is that simply notenough people are interested in working in thisfield. This could be related with an inadequatetraining, but it also expresses the apparent lack ofattractiveness of this type of work. In order tochange this it is necessary to raise the status ofgreen or sustainable occupations. In this respect itis commendable to pay attention to the furtherdevelopment of soft skills as ‘environmental aware-ness’ and ‘leadership’.
The impact on the skills can also be quan-titative (e.g. expansion of retrofitting may wellrequire an increase in the total number of trainedcarpenters/solar panels installers, etc.). A moregeneral observation is that renovation work (com-pared with new construction) is relatively labour-intensive and makes special demands on crafts-manship. This means that the skills of constructionworkers without experience in renovation workneed to be upgraded. Besides the up-skilling ofexisting jobs a range of new jobs and new skills isgoing to emerge. Highly energy-efficient dwellingsalso require a high level of workmanship and accu-racy in the building process, which impacts on theskills needed. These new roles, such as energy-effi-ciency analysts and or energy auditors, require newstaff with specialised skills.
Although new techniques, new practicesand new roles are emerging, most roles can still befilled by skilled workers from existing occupations. However, it is clear that many workers in the field ofenergy renovation will require some degree of up-skilling. Currently there is a lack of appropriatetraining for architects, engineers, auditors, crafts-men, technicians and installers, notably thoseinvolved in refurbishment work. So the necessaryup-skilling covers the complete range from lowskilled to high skilled employees. If one wants thatevery occupation is geared to the new situation it isnecessary to have a close look into the primarytraining of workers, the training on the job and theprocesses that safeguard that skills learned areapplied adequately. In many member states andalso at the European level, this is recognised and allkind of programmes have been launched to up-skillthe workforce and enlarge the number of qualifiedworkers available through training programmes,certification and qualification schemes.
CONCLUSIONS
There are many good reasons to argue for a reduc-tion in the use of fossil-fuel energy sources byreducing the demand for energy and switchingfrom fossil to renewable sources. Buildings accountfor 40% of Europe’s energy consumption andthree-quarters of the floor area of the building stockis residential. The actual progress however towardsrealising the energy saving targets has been slowerthan expected (e.g. EC, 2012). The exact determi-nation of (the lack of) progress is difficult to deter-mine. There is a lack of unambiguous data aboutthe physical characteristics of the European housingstock, the renovation rate, the extent of the mea-sures that are being and have been taken, theinvestment that has been made and the results ofthis investment in terms of energy efficiencyimprovements.
Unquestionable though is the fact that thehousing stock – which is already old - will becomestill older in relative terms. By 2050, 75% of thehousing stock will consist of dwellings that havealready been built today. Realising that the energyperformance of the current stock already could begreatly improved, this makes the need for swiftaction even more urgent. To achieve energy-efficiency targets, large-scalerenovation programmes will have to be carried out.The current average renovation rate in the EU isestimated at not much higher than 1%. Within thisrate of 1%, the lion’s share of the work carried outresults in only marginal improvements in the ener-gy performance of the renovated housing stock.The current renovation rate must be tripled torealise the energy goals that have been set, and notonly that: the extent of the renovations (the numberand type of measures) should also be increased sig-nificantly.
If one takes the goals formulated for ener-gy efficiency in this sector seriously, the conse-quences for additional investments and jobs couldbe substantial. Calculations have been made thatindicate about 1 million new jobs related to energyrenovations in Europe in the period 2005-2015.The number of new jobs that can be created jobsthat can be created can also be related to theheight of investment in the housing stock. On aver-age 12 to 19 new jobs can be created per €1 mil-lion invested. The assumptions behind these num-bers are not always clear and even where they areclear, they appear to diverge significantly. Wheninterpreting these numbers, one has to bear in mindthat many factors could have an impact. It is more than likely that the trend towards highlyenergy-efficient dwellings will affect the kind of jobsand the skills required. The realisation of effective
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demand a certain level of education and skills ofthe construction workers. Member states and alsothe EU have recognised this and a wide range ofprogrammes have been launched to up-skill theworkforce and enlarge the number of qualifiedworkers available through training programmes,certification and qualification schemes.
The need to drive down the demand forenergy in the housing sector and to make the tran-sition from fossil fuels to renewable energy is clear.Although hard to quantify in exact jobs, there canbe no doubt that realizing the ambitious energygoals will have a significant impact on the con-struction industry. The housing stock is old and wewill have to continue making the best of it for manydecades. Investment in quality improvements will beneeded. From this perspective and in view of thecurrent economic situation, it would seem wise toinvest significantly in the renovation of the buildingstock in the short term. This can considered as aneffective way to kick-start the (construction) econo-my. It will stimulate economic activity and generatenew jobs on a local level in a construction sectorwhere employment already is high and potentialemployees are available in abundance. New andambitious energy efficiency programs for the hous-ing stock could also generate other significant,long-term and sustainable benefits. Reducing ener-gy consumption will affect the volume of gas andoil imports (thus increasing the Gross NationalProduct and reducing the dependence on foreignenergy imports). Energy efficient houses (lowerenergy bills) create room for consumers to invest inother products and positively influence the healthsituation. The better indoor air quality and reduc-tion of GHG emissions will lead to a reduction inthe overall the costs for health care.
The case seems clear, it is now up to the EUand the member states to take the next steps.
REFERENCES
BPIE (BUILDINGS PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE OF EUROPE),
2011, Europe’s buildings under the microscope A country-by-
country review of the energy performance of buildings,
October, Brussels.
CECODHAS, 2011, Housing Europe Review 2012; the nuts
and bolts of European social housing systems, October
Brussels.
EC (EUROPEAN COMMISSION), 2005, Going More with
Less : Green Paper on Energy Efficiency, Brussels.
EC (EUROPEAN COMMISSION), 2011, Energy Efficiency
Plan (EEP), communication from the commission to the
European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic
and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions.
EC (EUROPEAN COMMISSION), 2012, Consultation paper
financial support for energy efficiency in buildings, Brussels,
February 2012.
EC (EUROPEAN COMMISSION), various years, Eurostat
(available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu).
GREEN JOBS INITIATIVE IN COOPERATION WITH INTER-
NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LABOUR STUDIES, 2012,
Working towards sustainable development - Opportunities for
decent work and social inclusion in a green economy.
ILO (INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION), 2011-a,
Research brief: Greening of the building sector is held back by
skill shortages. Skills-led strategies can drive green building for-
ward, Geneva.
ILO (INTERNATIONAL; LABOUR ORGANIZATION), 2011-b,
Comparative Analysis of Methods of Identification of Skill
Needs on the Labour Market in Transition to the Low Carbon
Economy.
ITARD, L. and MEIJER F., 2008, Towards a sustainable Northern
European housing stock: figures, facts and future, IOS Press,Amsterdam.
MEIJER, F., VISSCHER, NIEBOER, N. and KROESE,R., 2012,Jobs creation through energy renovation of the housing stock
(Neujobs Working Paper D14.2).
MEIJER, F. and VISSCHER, H., 2013, Jobs creation through
energy renovation of the housing stock. In Sn (Ed.), RICS Cobra2013. The Construction, Building and Real Estate ResearchConference (pp. 7-15). London: Royal Institution of CharteredSurveyors.
MINISTRY OF THE INTERIOR AND KINGDOM RELATIONS,2010, Housing Statistics in the European Union, 2010,September, The Hague.
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NAESS-SCHMIDT, H.S., HANSEN M. and C. VON UTFALL
DANIELSSON (Copenhagen Economics), 2012, Multiple ben-
efits of investing in energy efficient renovation of buildings;
Impact on Public Finances (commissioned by Renovate
Europe), October, Copenhagen.
VISSCHER, H., MAJCEN, D. and ITARD, L. 2012, Effectiveness
of energy performance certification for the existing housing
stock. In D Kashiwagi & K Sullivan (Eds.), RICS COBRA 2012,
Proceedings of the Construction, Building and Real Estate
Conference (pp. 130-148). Tempe, AZ: Arizona State
University.
Author(s):
Frits Meijer
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Architecture and The Built Environment
OTB Research for the Built Environment,
Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
Email: [email protected]
Henk Visscher
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Architecture and The Built Environment
OTB Research for the Built Environment,
Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BX Delft, The Netherlands
Email: [email protected]
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1 . i n t roduc t ion
Europe’s buildings are responsible for 40 per centof overall energy use and 36 per cent of co2emissions in the Eu (AcE et al., 2009; itard et al.,2008). in a comparative study including eightEuropean countries, itard and meijer (2008: 24)found that the residential sector is responsible for30 per cent of the total energy consumption. EEA(2008: 67) mentions that the residential sectoraccounted for 26.6 per cent of the final energyconsumption in 2005. some estimations suggest alower share (e.g. Brounen et al., 2012: 931) men-tion “one-fifth of the total global energy demand”),but also confirm that housing constitutes an impor-tant part of the total carbon emission.
in the last decade, energy efficiency is atopic of growing political importance. one of themost striking examples of this at the level of theEuropean union (Eu) is the introduction of theEnergy performance of Buildings directive (EpBd,also denoted as directive 2002/91/Ec), whichincluded the mandatory introduction of energy per-formance certificates in the member states. in2012, this directive was repealed by the more strin-gent directive 2010/31/Eu, which also prescribedmember states to apply ‘near zero’ energy stan-dards for new building and renovations. the atten-tion to the topic of energy efficiency also expandedto the rental housing sector. this increase can be
attributed to more stringent regulations (such asmentioned before), but also to more intrinsic moti-vations of either commercial nature (sustainabilitybecomes a selling opportunity) or social nature(improving energy efficiency lowers energy bills andis beneficial for the environment).
this paper presents the results of an inves-tigation about the policy developments regardingenergy efficiency in the non-profit housing sector inthe netherlands. in this investigation, the situationat the end of 2012 is compared with that at thebeginning of 2009. Where did the dutch non-prof-it housing providers stand in their policy develop-ment concerning energy efficiency, and where dothey stand now? have they become more ambi-tious or less ambitious?
the dutch non-profit housing sector is aninteresting case, because of its large share of thetotal housing sector, namely 31 per cent (BZK,2013: 7), which is much more than in any othercountry. in addition, there are clear signs of intrin-sic motivation in the sector, reflected among othersin national covenants regarding energy saving(more details in the following section) and a rela-tively high investment priority despite several politi-cal and economic developments that have consid-erably reduced the investment capacity in the sec-tor (nieboer and gruis, forthcoming).
the paper also deals with the main stimuliand barriers that the non-profit housing providers
Nico Nieboer, Ad Straub, Henk Visscher
Abstract
In recent years, energy efficiency is a topic of growing importance not only on the political agenda of many Western
countries, but also in the management of individual housing providers in these countries. Although there are many pub-
lications on how these organisations take up the topic of energy efficiency in their policies and activities, not so much
has been written about the progress in policy in the national housing sectors as a whole. This paper presents the results
of an investigation about the policy developments in the non-profit housing sector in the Netherlands, in which the pre-
sent situation is compared with that of four years ago. Where did the Dutch non-profit housing providers stand in their
policy development concerning energy efficiency, and where do they stand now? Have they become more ambitious
or less ambitious? The paper also deals with the main stimuli and barriers that the non-profit housing providers have
perceived. The findings show a progress in policy in the period under investigation, but this progress seems too small
to attain national and international targets for 2020.
Keywords: Energy Efficiency, Housing Management, Social Housing, The Netherlands.
EnErgy policy dEvElopmEnts in thE dutchnon-profit housing sEctor
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perceived in the years under investigation (2009-2012). such a time span is usually rather short toinvestigate changes in organisations’ policies, butin the netherlands this was a dynamic period, inwhich several political and economic developmentstook place.
the paper is structured as follows. first, wego into energy policies in non-profit housing sectorsin a few other countries. After this, the researchmethod is presented. then we discuss the results ofthe research, to start with policy developments atthe housing providers, followed by the perceivedstimuli and barriers for enhancing the energy per-formance of the housing stock. finally, conclusionsare drawn.
2 . Energy po l ic ies in seve ra l non-pro f-i t hous ing sec to r s
not so long ago, in most non-profit housing sectorsthe interest in the topic of energy efficiency, andalso in other topics concerning environmental sus-tainability, was rather poor. for instance, hall andpurchase (2006) found that housing associations inthe united Kingdom did not show much progress asfor waste reduction in design and construction: sus-tainability actions lacked ambition and mostlyremained isolated. garrett and Koontz (2008), intheir study on the adoption of passive solar housingin the united states, confirmed this picture of limit-ed adoption of sustainable innovations. they point-ed to the fact that demand and, related to that,availability of passive solar homes was low andremained low due to various constraints (e.g. insuf-ficient awareness and budget with the inhabitant,absence of economic benefits for the landlords,unattractive design). similar findings about thedevelopment and implementation of environment-friendly policies could not only be found in theunited states, but also elsewhere, and also in morerecent studies. nieboer et al. (2012), in their studyabout energy efficiency in the management of non-profit housing providers in eleven, mostly Europeancountries, conclude that “energy efficiency is not ataken-for-granted topic in the non-profit housingsector” (p. 238), although they also conclude thatthere are considerable differences between thecountries. for instance, palm (2013) found in herliterature study that the issue of energy efficiency is,compared with other countries, relatively high onthe agenda of swedish non-profit housingproviders. however, her empirical study showedthat energy efficiency was mostly not a key issue ineveryday practice, hampering the implementationof energy policies. similar implementation prob-lems have also been found by hoppe (2012), who
showed that energy policy ambitions in dutch hous-ing renovation projects were more than oncedownturned in the course of these projects. swan etal. (2013), in their study in the united Kingdom,generally confirm the low interest in energy efficien-cy, but make a nuance concerning the type of tech-nology: “low technology, grant-funded options arealmost universal, while more complex technologies,particularly those based around new approaches toheating, such as biomass or heat pumps are lesswidespread. the social housing sector is starting toengage with these newer technologies, althoughthe data does not indicate whether these are com-monplace (…) or merely demonstrator projects” (p.189).
At the beginning of this century, energy effi-ciency was not a topic of major concern in thedutch social rented housing sector either (sunikkaand Boon, 2003; straub, 2004), but this rapidlychanged in the years that followed. Especially in thesecond half of the first decade of this century, thenational implementation of the EpBd, combinedwith political pressures on the sector to show itssocial responsibility (in terms of both increasing thesustainability of the housing stock and increasing itsaffordability by reducing energy costs for the ten-ants), created an atmosphere in which considerableinvestments in energy saving and in the productionof renewable efficiency were favoured. in 2007, thenational umbrella organisation Aedes published itswhite paper “response to society” (Antwoord aande samenleving), in which the sector committeditself to considerable investments in the housingstock to improve its energy performance. in 2008,several national parties signed the “covenantEnergy saving housing Association sector”(Convenant Energiebesparing Corporatiesector).the main objectives in this covenant were 1) toreduce gas consumption in the sector by 20 percent and 2) to strive for an Energy performancecertificate (Epc) of B (the second highest rate in therange from A to g, if we exclude the very small cat-egories A+ and A++) in case of refurbishment.Although this covenant has already been replacedby a stricter covenant (which advocates an ‘aver-age’ Epc rating of B or the whole housing stock), ithas had a big impact on policy making of individ-ual housing associations. next to this covenant,Aedes also undersigned two other nationalcovenants, namely the covenant “Energy savingexisting buildings” (Energiebesparing bestaandegebouwen) and the “spring agreement on energysaving in new construction” (LenteakkoordEnergiebesparing in de nieuwbouw).
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represen ta t i veness
the research was carried out in december 2012 bya survey among all dutch housing associations,which manage more than 99% of all homes in thedutch non-profit rented housing sector. the surveycontained questions about the energy objectives inboth 2009 and 2012, about the years in whichthese objectives should be attained and about stim-uli and barriers for implementing the energy poli-cies. We chose for an internet survey, which we pre-ferred to a telephonic survey, because the answerson many questions had probably to be looked upand thus could not be given by heart. We obtainedthe necessary e-mail addresses for the survey froma telephonic screening, held in march/April 2012,among all housing associations for anotherresearch in the same field. in this screening we triedto collect names of staff members responsible forenergy saving policies. the resulting database con-sisted of three parts:
• organisations with the name of an appropriatecontact person including his/her e-mail address; inthese cases, the contact person was approacheddirectly;• organisations with the name of an appropriatecontact person, but without his/her e-mail address;in these cases, the general e-mail address of theorganisation was used, with a request to forwardthe e-mail to the respective contact person;• organisations without the name of an appropri-ate contact person; in these cases, the general e-mail address of the organisation was used, with arequest to forward the e-mail to a staff memberresponsible for energy saving.
the dutch social housing sector counted389 housing associations at the end of 2011. Wehad the necessary data of 347 of them to invite
them to participate in the research and to fill in thequestionnaire. of these 347 organisations 139responded, a response rate of 40 per cent.According to the size of the organisations (mea-sured by the number of managed dwelling units),the distribution of the response resembled that ofthe population, although the small housing associ-ations were slightly underrepresented (see table 1).this bias, however, was too little to present weighedfigures instead of the bare results from the survey.
4 . pol icy deve lopments
one of the main subjects in the survey was the pol-icy objectives of the housing associations regardingthe energy performance of their housing stock.What were these objectives in 2009 and what arethey now? have the housing associations becomemore ambitious or, on the contrary, less ambitions?table 2 presents several types of objectives and alsohow often they were adhered, both at the beginningof 2009 and at the end of 2012.
the results indicate a further developmentof the housing associations’ energy policies in theperiod 2009-2012: for each of the types of objec-tives the number of housing associations that pur-sue them has been increased. in the same period,the share of housing associations that stated not tohave objectives in the field of energy efficiency fell
Table 1. Response and population of housing associations
by number of managed dwelling units.
Table 2. Percentage of housing associations by type of objectives, early 2009 and end of 2012.
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from 13 to 3 per cent. formulating objectives interms of Epc ratings (the first three options in table2) was relatively popular in both 2009 and2012; this was also true for appointing a mini-mum package of energy measures.
table 3 presents per type of objective the hous-ing associations that pursued this type of objec-tive both in 2009 and in 2012. most of theseorganisations did not change the pursued ener-gy performance levels in the meantime, butwithin the minority group of housing associa-tions that made a change in this respect, moreoften a more ambitious policy than a less ambi-tious policy can be observed. thus, on average,policies in the sector have become more strin-gent.
A more stringent energy policy can alsobe observed in figure 1, which only refers tothose housing associations that pursue an
‘average’ Epc rating for the wholehousing portfolio. in 2009 most of theseorganisations pursed an ‘average’ Epcrating of c, but at the end of 2012, anEpc rating of B was the most common.A shift in the same direction can beobserved among the housing associa-tions striving for a minimum Epc ratingfor all dwellings (see figure 2) andamong the housing associations thatpursue a certain Epc rating fordwellings that will be improved (seefigure 3). if we compare the results infigure 1, however, with the ‘covenantEnergy saving housing Associationsector’ (mentioned in section 2), whichadvocates an ‘average’ Epc rating of Bfor the whole social housing sector, itcan be argued that the policy develop-
Figure 2. Percentage of housing associations by pursued
minimum EPC rating for all dwellings, as share of thosehousing associations that pursue a minimum EPC rating forall dwellings.
Figure 3. Percentage of housing associations by pursued
EPC rating for dwellings that will be improved, as share ofall housing associations that pursue an EPC rating fordwellings that will be improved.
Figure 4. Importance, as perceived by housing associations, of stim-
ulating factors for the realisation of their energy saving policies*
Table 3. Percentage of housing associations by level of ambition of their
objectives, per type of pursued objective.
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ments in the sector are insufficient to attain theobjectives of that covenant: more housing associa-tions have to pursue an ‘average’ Epc rating of Band, moreover, many more housing associationshave to pursue an ‘average’ Epc rating anyway (atthe end of 2012, 51% did not).
in most cases, except for objectives regard-ing an ‘average’ Epc rating or gas use, a slightextension of the time schedule can be observed.thus, housing associations take a bit more time torealise their ambitions.
for the data presented in the tables andfigures in this section, we investigated if there was acorrelation with the size of the housing association.this proved to be false for all variables: the rela-tionship with the size of these organisations waseither weak or absent.
5. s t imul i and bar r ie r s
many studies deal with the stimuli and barriersrelated to the improvement of the energy perfor-
mance in the building stock. A frequently men-tioned stimulus is the saving on the energy bill,whereas a frequently mentioned barrier is the so-called ‘split incentive’: the fact that the investor inenergy efficiency does not reap the benefits of it(see among numerous authors e.g. sorrell, 2004;Bird and hernández, 2012). the most striking stim-uli that have been found in the eleven countriesinvestigated by nieboer et al. (2012) are the intrin-sic motivation in the non-profit housing sector andgovernment support or pressure. the split incentivehas been found to be a major barrier, along withthe related fact that housing providers have littlepossibilities to pass on the costs of investment to thetenants. sunikka and Boon (2003) identified cost asa primary barrier, followed by capacity, knowledgeand acceptance by the tenants. to these impedi-ments, factors can be added that are related to thestructure of the building sector as a whole ratherthan to the individual organisations. van Buerenand priemus (2002) point towards the strong frag-mented decision-making structure of the buildingsector (meaning that measures run the risk of fail-ure if any party does not cooperate) and the domi-nation of cost-efficiency. crabtree and hes (2009)state that the disaggregation and piecemeal natureof innovation within the building industry, whichhampers sustainability uptake in housing inAustralia, is underpinned by unfamiliarity with newtechnologies, a lack of consistent legislation andpricing and unclear channels of communication.
in our survey, a number of possible stimuliand barriers have been presented to the respon-dents, along with the request to indicate for each ofthem how important the respective factor was in thepreceding four years. respondents could fill in theiranswers on a five-point scale, which was convertedinto a number between 0 and 4, where 0 meant‘hardly or not´ and 4 ‘to a very large extent´. so
the perceived importance increases with thevalue.
According to the housing associations, suf-ficient investment capacity and clear exploitationplans are the most important stimulating factorsfor the realisation of their energy saving policies(see figure 4). these housing associations donot only distinguish themselves from the othersby their investment capacity and exploitationplans, but also by a board that is continuouslycommitted to energy improvement, plus the sim-ple fact that these organisations are working onthe energy improvement of their housing stockfor a relatively long time – two factors that arealso seen as important by the responding hous-ing associations.
in general the impediments are seen as lessimportant than the stimuli, as the scores are
Table 4. Average years in which the housing associations
state their objectives to be reached.
Figure 5. Importance, as perceived by housing associations, of
impeding factors for the realisation of their energy saving policies*
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generally lower. Because sufficient investmentcapacity and clear exploitation plans are regardedas important stimulating factors, is not surprisingthat, conversely, insufficient investment capacity andunclear exploitation plans are mentioned as themost important impeding factors. declining sales ofhomes and little support from the management ofthe organisation are perceived level as importantfactors as well. the most important impeding factor,however, is the little cooperation of the inhabitants(see figure 5).
there are hardly any correlations betweenthe perceived importance of the factors for the real-isation of their energy saving policies on the onehand and the size of the housing associations (innumbers of managed dwelling units) on the other.the eight correlations (out of 18) that are statisti-cally significant are very weak. the strongest corre-lation is that with the declining sales of homes,which has a spearman’s r of 0,291, meaning thatbigger housing associations attach slightly moreimportance to this factor than their smaller sisterorganisations.
6 . conc lus ion
the importance of energy efficiency has remarkablygrown in the last decade, and the results of the sur-vey indicate further policy developments in this areain the dutch social housing sector in the period2009-2012. in 2012 more policy objectives wereformulated than in 2009. further, the objectives in2012 were, on average, slightly more stringentthan in 2009, although it must also be noted thatin this respect a vast majority of the housing associ-ations was in 2012 as ambitious as in 2009.
despite this progress, the results of theresearch confirm the vulnerable position of sustain-ability issues on the agendas of housing investors. itcannot be concluded, for instance, that the currentambitions of the dutch non-profit housing providersare high enough to meet the national andEuropean targets in 2020. Apart from the fact thatthese targets do not only apply to the social hous-ing sector alone, the pursued ‘average’ Epc ratingsseem too low to meet the new covenant on energysaving in the sector itself. if we add to this the oftenpoor implementation of policies (e.g. hoppe,2012) and the fact that actual energy savings aregenerally lower than the model-based calculationspredict (majcen et al., 2013), one may seriouslydoubt if the European and national saving goals for2020 will be attained. this may be seen as a dis-appointing result in the perspective of somefavourable circumstances: the sector is well organ-ised (stimulating mutual knowledge exchange),
considerable parts of the stock allow serial inter-vention (boosting high production for a relativelylow price) and the financial position of many organ-isations is (still) good, especially to internationalstandards. Even more disappointing results mightbe expected in sectors operating in less favourablecircumstances.
Among a set of presented factors, sufficientinvestment capacity and clear exploitation plans areperceived as the most important stimuli. the mostimportant barriers that resulted from the survey are,conversely, insufficient investment capacity andunclear exploitation plans. the development andimplementation of such plans is in the hands ofhousing providers, but the investment capacity islargely not. As for this capacity, current develop-ments show a declining trend. the strong reductionin number of homes sold on the housing market,plus recent tax plans of the national governmentconsiderably reduce the room for investment. manyhousing associations have already announced thatthey can only cope with these developments if theyseverely cut in their investment plans. it still has tobe seen how large the consequences for the ener-gy investments are, but that it has some effect ishighly probable.
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Author(s):
nico nieboerotB research for the Built Environmentfaculty of Architecture and the Built Environmentdelft university of technologyJaffalaan 9, 2628 BX delft, the netherlandsEmail: [email protected]
Ad straubotB research for the Built Environmentfaculty of Architecture and the Built Environmentdelft university of technologyJaffalaan 9, 2628 BX delft, the netherlandsEmail: [email protected]
henk visscherfaculty of Architecture and the Built Environmentdelft university of technologyJaffalaan 9, 2628 BX delft, the netherlandsEmail: [email protected]
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INTRODUCTION
The authorities in Europe consider the reduction ofCO2 emissions to be a top priority. Ambitious goalshave been set at European level. These involve cut-ting CO2 emissions by 20% (relative to the 1990levels) by 2020, and by 50% by 2050 (CEC 2007).There has been a particular focus on the potentialfor saving energy in the EU’s building stock, as thisis considered to be responsible for 40% of EU ener-gy demand (Ekins and Lees 2008).
In France the 2007 political debate, knownas Grenelle de l’environnement, led to legislation inthe form of the Grenelle I Act and the Grenelle IIAct (Whiteside et al. 2010), which set out a morespecific course of action to reduce CO2 emissions.The Grenelle legislation covers a wide range ofactivities (e.g. agriculture, transport, education), theconstruction sector being one of the most impor-tant. Several of its proposals address the need tospeed up the rate of renovation in the residentialsector and to boost the energy savings achieved.Additionally, social housing organisations (SHOs)are identified as key players in the process of
achieving the set targets. The following objectives,presented in the plan bâtiment (buildings initiativeof the Grenelle Acts), give an impression of theFrench government’s ambitions in terms of renovat-ing existing building stock (Plan bâtiment 2013):
•Energy renovation of 400,000 dwellings annual-ly, starting 2013.•Energy renovation of 800,000 of the most ener-gy-inefficient social housing dwellings until 2020.•Start of energy renovation of all public buildingsbefore 2013.•Encourage energy renovation in the public andprivate service sectors between 2012 and 2020.
Social housing in France represents 17% ofthe total housing stock, accounting for over 3.1 mil-lion dwellings. A large proportion of social housingis provided by publicly and privately owned com-panies acting on a non-profit basis, which areknown as HLM, Habitation à Loyer Moderé. Accessto social housing in France is limited by incomeceilings that vary between regions and according tohousehold size. The level of these income ceilings
Tadeo Baldiri Salcedo Rahola, Ad Straub, Angela Ruiz Lázaro,Yves Galiègue
AbstractThe renovation of existing building stock is seen as one the most practical ways to achieve the high energy savings tar-gets for the built environment defined by European authorities. In France, the Grenelle environmental legislationaddresses the need to renovate the building stock and specifically stresses the key role of social housing organisations.In recent years, French procurement rules have been modified in order to allow social housing organisations to makeuse of integrated contracts such as Design-Build-Maintain. These contracts have a greater potential to deliver energysavings in renovation projects than do traditional project delivery methods, like Design-bid-Build. This is because theyfacilitate collaboration between the various actors and boost their commitment to the achievement of project goals. Inorder to evaluate the estimated potential of such contracts to achieve energy savings, two renovation projects (carriedout by two French social housing organisations) were analysed from their inception until the end of construction work.The analysis is based on written tender documents, technical evaluation reports, observations of the negotiation phase(in one of the cases) and interviews with the main actors involved. Findings show that Design-Build-Maintain contractsdo indeed offer substantial energy savings. Both projects achieved higher energy targets than those initially required.Furthermore, the energy results are guaranteed by the contractor, through a system of bonuses and penalties. Otherresults demonstrate that, compared to previous Design-bid-Build renovation projects, these projects were completed inless time (from project inception to completion of the work) and at virtually the same cost. There has also been a sub-stantial improvement in cooperation between the actors involved.
Keywords: Building Renovation, Design-Build-Maintain, Energy Savings, Integrated Contracts, Social Housing.
ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN FRENCH SOCIAL HOUSINGRENOVATIONS VIA DESIGN-BUILD-MAINTAIN.
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eensures that a large proportion of the population iseligible. However, 35% of social housing tenantscurrently live below the poverty line (Pittini andLaino 2012).
The energy saving ambitions of the Frenchgovernment have led to the use of integrated build-ing contracts, which include design and construc-tion work for the renovation of the social housingstock. The procurement rules for construction pro-jects developed by public entities in France arebased on legislation governing public contractingauthorities, known as the MOP Act 85-704 (FrenchRepublic 1985), and the public procurement code,or code des marchés publics (French Republic2006a). As far back as 1985, the MOP enabledthe use of integrated contracts (known as concep-tion-realisation in France). However, its use wasrestricted to particularly complex projects (Act 85-704; A.18). In the subsequent years, specific legis-lation in other sectors allowed the Ministries ofInternal Affairs, Justice and Defence, as well ashealth institutions, to use integrated building con-tracts. The 2009-323 Act (French Republic 2009)enabled the use of integrated contracts for the ren-ovation of social housing (2009-323 Act; A.110).Modifications made to the public procurementcode in 2008 allowed the use of competitive dia-logue as a tendering procedure for integratedbuilding contracts in the field of building renova-tions (Code des marchés publics; A.36, A.37 andA.67).
If maintaining the building in question isalso included in the integrated contract (Design-Build-Maintain (DBM)), it is possible to guarantee abuilding’s energy performance after the renovationwork has been carried out (Chalançon et al. 2010).This is especially useful for SHOs that aim to opti-mise energy savings in their renovation projects. Inresearch undertaken by Salcedo Rahola and Straub(2013), DBM was identified as the project deliverymethod with the greatest potential to deliver energysavings in social housing renovations. The reasonsgiven were that it facilitates cooperation betweenthe various actors and boosts their commitment toachieving the project’s goals.
In this study, the use of Design-Build-Maintain contracts for the renovation of socialhousing is evaluated using two case studies of ren-ovation projects procured by SHOs. Our researchquestion was: how can the use of a Design-Build-Maintain contract improve collaborative workingconditions for the actors involved while improvingthe project outcomes, particularly with regard toenergy savings?
Section 2 gives details of our researchmethodology, while Section 3 describes the individ-ual case studies. Our findings are set out in Section
4. Section 5 presents our conclusions and indicatesthis study’s limitations. It also contains various man-agerial recommendations and suggestions for fur-ther research.
2 . RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
For the purposes of this study, we conducted a lit-erature review and two case studies. The literaturereview covers papers (published in internationaljournals) dealing with integrated building contractsand with the renovation of residential buildings.More specific information about social housing andenergy renovation in France, French national legis-lation, and French public procurement rules wasobtained from reports produced by various Frenchorganisations and European research projects.
Our case studies were two social housing renova-tion projects, implemented by two French SHOs:
•The renovation of 14 dwellings in a three-storeyapartment block in Nurieux-Volognat (in south-eastern France) by the Dynacité SHO; and•The renovation of 231 dwellings in four apart-ment blocks (ranging from 6 to 10 storeys) in Vitry-sur-Seine (in the southern suburbs of Paris) by theLogirep SHO.
Dynacité is a public social housing organisationthat operates in four administrative divisions in east-ern France (Ain, Isère, Rhône and Saône et Loire).It owns 23,395 dwellings that are occupied byapproximately 59,000 tenants. Logirep is a privatesocial housing organisation operating in tworegions in the north of France (Île-de-France andHaute-Normandie). It owns 36,000 dwellings thatare occupied by approximately 108,000 tenants.
Both case studies were pilot projects withinthe Shelter project, funded by the Intelligent EnergyEurope programme. The Shelter project aims tofacilitate the use of new models of cooperation inthe renovation of social housing. Data on the casestudies was obtained from:
•The tender documents: call for offers, specifica-tions and preliminary designs;•Observation of the negotiation phase, in the caseof Dynacité;•Interviews, carried out after the construction workwas finished, with the social housing renovationsmanager, the social housing project manager, theconstruction company, the architect office and themaintenance company involved in both cases;•The evaluation reports produced by the SHOs’project managers.
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A social network approach, as defined byKenis and Oerlemans (2008), was used to gaininsight into the actors’ cooperation structure. Thisapproach focuses on the characteristics of the rela-tionships rather than the characteristics of the actorsthemselves. The relationship types defined for thepurposes of this study are based on the citizen par-ticipation ladder defined by Arnstein (1969), includ-ing the alternatives proposed by Biggs (1989). Theywere adapted to comply with the specific circum-stances of the construction sector. The five cate-gories give an indication of the information flowsbetween SHOs, designers, construction companiesand maintenance companies:
•Informative: Information is offered without a spe-cific request. One-way flow of information, nofeedback. •Contractual: A specific request is defined, ananswer is offered. This answer is then either accept-ed or rejected.•Consultative: A specific request is defined, severaloptions are proposed and a choice is made.•Collaborative: The objectives are mutuallydefined. The risk, however, is not shared.•Partnership: The objectives are mutually definedand the risk is shared.
3 .0 CASE STUDIES
3 .1 In i t ia l s ta tus o f the bu i l di ngs
Both the construction and the finishing materials ofDynacité’s apartment block at Nurieux-Volognatwere of good quality. All of the components andequipment used dated from the year of construction(1972). No major renovation had previously beencarried out, except for the insulation of two of thebuilding’s façades (using 40mm polystyrene pan-els) during the 1980s. The windows had woodenframes and were single-glazed, while heating andhot water were supplied by a collective heating sys-
tem running on fuel oil. The building made use ofnatural ventilation.
Logirep’s four apartment blocks at Vitry-sur-Seine were constructed in 1966. The quality of theconstruction and that of the finishing materials wasstill good and no major refurbishments had beencarried out previously. The building had prefabri-cated, non-insulated walls and single-glazed win-dows with wooden frames. The heating and hotwater were supplied by a district heating system andthe building made use of natural ventilation. Asummary of the characteristics of the buildings priorto renovation is presented in Table 1.
At Nurieux-Volognat, actual energy use(energy consumption as measured by the meter)was close to the theoretical energy use (calculatedusing methods proposed by the EnergyPerformance Building Directive). At Vitry-sur-Seine,however, actual use exceeded theoretical use by aconsiderable margin. Accordingly, both cases con-flicted with recent studies in which actual energy usein poorly insulated dwellings was shown to be con-siderably lower than the theoretical predictions(Majcen et al. 2013 ). Majcen’s hypothesis is thatpeople in poorly insulated buildings are well awareof their dwelling’s energy performance and thatthey act accordingly, by not heating every room orby turning down the thermostat. The SHO man-agers interviewed expressed the view that neither ofthese hypotheses (which could be valid in dwellingswith individual heating systems) apply in buildingswith a collective heating system.
3 .2 Charac te r i s t i c s o f the tenders
In both cases, the renovation projects were ten-dered as Design-Build-Maintain contracts. Dynacitétendered the contract using a reduced competitivedialogue, consisting of a single round of negotia-tions. Only three candidates responded to the callfor tenders. This is the legal minimum for this typeof procedure, as defined in Article 67 of the 2006-
Table 1. Initial characteristics of the buildings in question.
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975 Decree (French Republic 2006b). The threecandidates were all consortiums, two of which wereled by national construction companies. The otherconsisted of local SMEs. The three candidates wereinvited to participate in the negotiation phase.
During the negotiation phase, the threecandidates presented their renovation proposals toDynacité individually, in separate meetings. Theyhad the opportunity to ask questions and weregiven feedback. The consortiums led by nationalconstruction companies proposed a preliminarydesign that largely reflected the requirements set byDynacité. The consortium consisting of local SMEsfailed to comply with all the requirements. Duringthe course of the meeting, it became clear that thisparticular consortium had misunderstood some ofthe requirements involved.
After the negotiations had been completed,the candidates had two months to modify their pro-posals and submit their final offers. The best offerwas selected on the basis of a set of award criteria,within which energy performance represented 20%of the total score (see Table 2). The SMEs’ consor-tium achieved the highest score and was awardedwith the contract.
The non-selected candidates were award-ed a sum of €12,000. Dynacité set the minimumrequirements to be met in relation to energy perfor-mance: a minimum of French Energy PerformanceCertificate level B, below a theoretical 90kWh/m2/year, and a minimum reduction of 40% inreal energy consumption for heating and hot water.
In the case of Logirep, the contract was ten-
dered using the restricted procedure. Five candi-dates from a total of eight, the legal minimum forthis type of procedure (as stipulated in Article 61 ofthe 2001-210 Decree; French Republic 2001),were pre-selected and invited to submit their pro-posals. The five candidates were all consortiums,each of which was headed by a national construc-tion company. The selection was based on a set ofaward criteria in which energy performance repre-sented 30% of the total score (see Table 2).Candidates who had submitted a proposal but whohad not been selected were awarded a sum of€15,000. Logirep defined the following minimumrequirements to be achieved in relation to the ener-gy performance: a minimum of French EnergyPerformance Certificate label BBC “low consump-tion building label” (equivalent to less than a theo-retical 104 kWh/m2/year) and a minimum reduc-tion of 30% in the actual energy consumption forheating and hot water.
3 .3 Nature o f the cons t ruc t ion work
The renovation project in Nurieux-Volognat, with abudget of €39,000 per apartment, included therenovation of kitchens, bathrooms, floors and elec-tric systems in the apartments and repainting work,the renewal of garbage facilities and floors in thecommon spaces. Moreover, a set of energy-savingmeasures representing 45% of the total budget wasimplemented:
•wall insulation (14 cm polystyrene panels);•roof insulation (30 cm glass wool); •replacement of windows (PVC frame, doubleglazing 4/16/4 low emissive argon, Uw< 1.4Wm2K); •installation of hygrosensitive mechanical ventila-tion;•replacement of heating boiler and hot water sup-ply (high efficiency gas boiler).
Table 2. Award criteria and distribution used.
Nurieux-Volognat and Vitry-sur-Seine projects after renovation. Image (T.B. Salcedo Rahola)
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In Vitry-sur-Seine, the renovation projecthad a budget of €40,174 per apartment. This pro-ject involved the renewal of kitchens, bathrooms,floors and electric systems in the apartment,repainting work, the restructuring of green areasand renewal of garbage facilities in the communalspaces. In this project, the energy-saving measuresrepresented 48% of the total budget and included:
•Wall insulation (12 cm polystyrene panelsR=3.75 m2K/W);•Roof insulation (13 cm polyurethane panels); •Replacement of windows (PVC frame, doubleglazing 4/16/4 low emissive argon, Uw< 1.4Wm2K); •Installation of hygrosensitive mechanical ventila-tion;•Replacement of the district heating system heatexchanger;•Installation of energy monitoring system in eachdwelling.
3 .4 Energy per fo rmance
In both cases, an energy performance certificatewas issued based on the official theoretical calcu-lation method. Both projects also involved mainte-nance contracts that included a guarantee of per-formance, in terms of actual energy consumption.It was the consortiums themselves that proposed thefigure for guaranteed actual energy consumption(see Table 3).
The energy consumption guarantee has thesame period of validity as the respective mainte-nance contracts (8 years for Nurieux-Volognat and4 years in the case of Vitry-sur-Seine). According tothe terms of the contracts, no penalties may beimposed during the first year in the event of under-performance. From the second year onwards, if thereduction in energy consumption is higher than thelevel specified in the contract, the gains are to beshared equally between the consortium and thetenants. In the event of underperformance, howev-er, 100% of the amount involved is to be coveredby the consortium. The difference between theoret-ical energy use and guaranteed energy use resultsfrom the uncertainties involved in predicting userbehaviour. Indeed, the consortium members inter-viewed indicated that this is particularly applicableto buildings with a collective heating system.
3 .5 Charac te r i s t i c s of the re la t ionsh ips
The common project delivery system used byDynacité for major renovations is the traditionalDesign-bid-Build (DbB) model. The design servicesare tendered in a single contract, which in France iscalled maître d'œuvre (project manager). Themaître d'œuvre is usually a group of design com-panies led by an architectural firm. Using the tech-nical documents produced by the design compa-nies, the construction work is tendered by Dynacitéin the form of multiple contracts. Dynacité usuallydivides the work into lots to facilitate the involve-ment of local small and medium-sized enterprises(SMEs). The maintenance services are contracted,per service, for a part of the entire building portfo-lio. Of the various maintenance services contract-ed, the energy services contract is the largest. Theenergy services company is responsible for main-taining the energy systems as well as for the supplyof energy. The design companies have a consulta-tive role. During the design process, they propose arange of design options in response to requestsfrom the SHO. The relationships between the SHOand the other contracted parties are purely con-tractual in nature, as the SHO is free to accept orreject the answer to its specific request. The rela-tionship between the design companies and thespecialised contractors is purely informative innature, being restricted to a one-way flow of infor-mation (see Figure 1).
While common project delivery systemused by Logirep is also based on the traditionalDbB model, there are two major differences interms of the renovation processes used. SinceLogirep is a private SHO, if the total price of a bidis below a certain threshold, it does not need tocomply with French public procurement rules.However, it must comply with its own procure-ment code, which requires a minimum number ofoffers rather than a public call. The amountsinvolved when contracting out design servicesoften fall below this threshold. As a result, candi-dates are chosen from among a restricted num-ber of design companies that the SHO hasworked with in the past. This is why their relation-ship is considered ‘collaborative’ rather than‘consultative’ (see Figure 1). The second differ-ence is that Logirep usually tenders the construc-tion work in a single contract, so the successfulcompanies tend to be general contractors.
In both Design-Build-Maintain projects, thevarious companies contracted directly by the SHOwere all consortiums. The relationship between thevarious companies in a consortium can be seen asa partnership, as the consortium’s objectives aremutually defined. For Logirep, the specialised con-tractors were not part of the consortium, since theyTable 3. Energy use after renovation.
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were contracted by the general contractor.The two cases studied involved quite differ-
ent relationships between the SHO and the consor-tium. In the case of Logirep, the relationship is con-tractual. Logirep tendered the contract according toa restricted procedure. Accordingly, the pre-select-ed candidates immediately presented a preliminarydesign in response to a request from the SHO. Inthe case of Dynacité, this relationship can be con-sidered consultative. Dynacité tendered the contractusing a reduced competitive dialogue, consisting ofa single round of negotiations. During these nego-tiations, the candidates participating in the compet-itive dialogue each presented a preliminary designto the SHO, together with a limited range of alter-native options. Each candidate had an individualmeeting with the SHO, which then provided feed-back on the design proposal and its alternatives. Inthis course of this meeting, the SHO did not makea definitive choice from among the alternatives,however it was able to indicate its preferences.Following this meeting, the candidates each sub-mitted a modified preliminary design.
4.0 F INDINGS
Both DBM projects achieved their energy savingstargets and even surpassed the minimum require-ments. These projects were completed in less time
(from project inception to completion of construc-tion) and at virtually the same cost (in terms ofdesign and construction) as other, similar, DbB pro-jects. Moreover, the general perception among theactors involved was that communication had beenimproved and mutual conflicts reduced. Previousstudies on integrated contracts in other constructionsectors delivered similar findings in terms of time-use, costs, and the relationships between individualactors (Hale et al. 2006; Koppinen andLahdenperä 2007; Molenaar et al. 2010;Palaneeswaran et al. 2003; Pietroforte and Miller2002 ).
At this stage it was not possible to verify thebuilding’s actual post-renovation energy consump-tion, given the limited amount of time that hadelapsed since the work had been completed. Theguarantee of energy consumption defined in themaintenance contract can be used as a perfor-mance indicator for energy efficiency. Dynacitérequired a 40% reduction in energy consumption,and the winning consortium provided a contractu-ally guaranteed cut of 42.5%. Logirep required a30% reduction in energy consumption, and thewinning consortium provided a contractually guar-anteed cut of 40%.
The total duration of the project wasreduced in both cases. There were also changes tothe length of individual project phases. In the caseof Dynacité, the total duration of the project (from
Figure 1. Common Relations among actors in Design-bid-Build and Design-Build-Maintain contracts of Dynacité and Logirep
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inception until the end of construction work) was cutby 3 months (relative to a conventional DbB reno-vation project with similar characteristics), which isequivalent to an 11% reduction in time. The corre-sponding figures for Logirep were 1 month, and2.5%. In the case of Logirep, the project remainedon stand-by for five months at the end of the designphase, as various internal financial agreementswere not completed on time. Without this delay, thereduction involved would have been 15% (seeTable 4). The SHOs believe that future projectsinvolving DBM contracts could probably reduce thistime by a further one or two months. This is becausethe design work on the new process is now com-plete, and the new contract documents havealready been created, so no more time will need tobe devoted to these aspects during the pre-tenderphase.
The interviews revealed that the designphase has been completed more quickly (see Table4). By the time that the design phase started, themain design decisions had already been taken. Thiswas because the candidates needed to present apreliminary design at the end of the tender phase.Moreover, when the design team is working on thefinal design, less time is required to choosebetween the possible design alternatives. This isbecause the consortium includes a constructioncompany, so it is possible to get immediate answersto questions about prices and feasibility of imple-mentation. Improved preparation, together withbetter coordination between design and implemen-tation, produced time savings during the construc-tion phase. DbB projects often require extra designdecisions to be taken during this phase, but this wasnot the case here. With regard to the tender phase,Logirep saved some additional time as they onlyneeded to tender one contract rather than two. Thiswas not the case with Dynacité. As a result of thecompetitive dialogue involved, Dynacité’s tenderphase took two months longer than a DbB project.
For both renovation projects, the SHOscalculated that the cost of the work involved wasjust 1% to 2% higher than in similar DbB projects.This was in spite of the fact that the tender proce-dure was considerably more expensive, partlybecause the evaluation required the involvement ofexternal consultants but more particularly becauseof the requirement to compensate non-selectedcandidates. For Dynacité, the compensation of
non-selected candidates represented 4.2% of thetotal cost. The corresponding figure for Logirep was0.7%. The difference in these percentages arisesfrom the enormous disparity in total project costs(€570,000 for Dynacité and €9 million forLogirep).
The general view of all the actors inter-viewed was that the relationships between theactors involved were better than in similar DbB pro-jects. In addition, the majority indicated that theytrusted all of the actors involved and that fewer con-flicts had occurred. The flow of information wasreported to be higher during the initial stages of theproject (the tender and design phases) and lowerduring the construction phase. It was also statedthat the meetings were less formal.
However, a deeper analysis of the relation-ship between the actors did yield some specificdetails. In the interviews, every actor was requestedto evaluate their relationship with each of the otheractors involved in the project. They had to indicatewhether this was better, unchanged or worse, rela-tive to their previous experiences of DbB, and togive reasons for this view. The evaluation of therelationship was based on four parameters: flow ofinformation, meetings, conflicts and trust (see Table5). In the case of Dynacité, there was reduced infor-mation flow and there were fewer meetings withcontractors than in previous projects. This isbecause, in the past, a number of specialized con-tractors had to be commissioned directly. Using thepresent approach, the coordination role is trans-ferred to the consortium. Dynacité found thatreduced communication did not impact the trustthat they had in their contractors.
In both cases the maintenance companiesparticipated less in the process than the otheractors. One unusual aspect of the Dynacité projectwas that the maintenance company contact personwas switched during the process. This had the effectof reducing the company’s presence at the regularteam meetings. As a result, the relationship with themaintenance company was not evaluated. In theLogirep project, the maintenance company did par-ticipate in the regular meetings, but the other actorsfelt that it only played a minor part, and that itsinvolvement was mainly limited to the designphase. On the other hand, in both cases, the main-tenance companies believed that even making aminor contribution during the design phase repre-
Table 4. Project phases from inception until the end of construction work.
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sented a major step forward. They had gone froma situation in which they had no influence at all inthe design to one in which they could be sure thatthe installations they would have to maintain, wouldmeet all their requirements perfectly.
CONCLUSIONS
We analysed two French social housing renovationprojects (from inception to the end of constructionwork) that used the DBM project delivery methodrather than the usual DbB method. We demon-strated that it is possible to engage the design com-panies, construction companies and maintenancecompanies to achieve energy savings that exceedthose stipulated by the SHO and to obtain a guar-antee of results. This approach also made it possi-ble to reduce the duration of a project, while keep-ing the costs involved approximately equivalent tothose incurred by DbB renovation projects. The col-laborative set-up defined by the DBM process alsoresulted in improved relationships between theactors involved. However, our analysis of theserelationships indicated that there is still room forimprovement, particularly with regard to the main-tenance company.
The case studies demonstrate that the use ofDesign-Build-Maintain project delivery in the reno-vation of social housing is a good strategy forimproving energy savings. If such savings are to beachieved, it is necessary to define:
•Realistic but ambitious minimum requirements;•Clear and measurable award criteria that stressthe importance of achieving high energy savings;and•A guarantee mechanism that is fair and robust.
However, in order to profit from these potentialbenefits, the following conditions need to be takeninto consideration:
•The scale of the contract must belarge enough to ensure that any com-pensation paid to non-selected candi-dates does not adversely affect thetotal cost of the project; •The SHO’s maintenance strategyneeds to be flexible enough to handlemaintenance contracts that are pro-ject-related as well as maintenancestock-related contracts.
The study involved two pilot projects inFrance. This sample size is too small tosupport any general conclusions.However, this study’s conclusionscould be of benefit to SHOs in France
and other European states, given their commonobjective of achieving substantial energy savings inrenovation projects. The scope for potential energysavings clearly depends on the initial consumptionfigures. Moreover, project results can vary consid-erably depending on whether the dwellings in ques-tion have individual or collective heating systems.
The social network approach used in thisstudy has helped to identify the changes in rela-tionships between the main actors involved. Furtherresearch is needed to extend the analysis to everyone of the actors involved and to evaluate thechanges in their relationships in greater detail.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their appreciationto Didier Michon and Xavier Martel, project man-agers of the renovation projects, for their coopera-tion and assistance with this study. The authorswould also like to thank the various professionalsinvolved in the projects for their input.
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Author(s) :
Tadeo Baldiri Salcedo RaholaDelft University of TechnologyFaculty of Architecture and the Built EnvironmentOTB Research for the Built EnvironmentJaffalaan 9, Delft, the NetherlandsEmail: [email protected]
Ad StraubAssociate Professor, Delft University of TechnologyFaculty of Architecture and the Built EnvironmentOTB Research for the Built EnvironmentJaffalaan 9, Delft, the Netherlands.Email: [email protected]
Angela Ruiz LázaroUrban Renewal Project OfficerLogirep, Gambetta 127, Suresnes, FranceEmail: [email protected]
Yves GaliègueProject Manager, DynacitéBoulevard du 8 Mai 1945 390, Bourg en Bresse, FranceEmail: [email protected]
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Housing in Chile generates almost a fifth of finalenergy consumption, a similar fraction to othernations in Latin America and the rest of the world(CNE, 2009). Additionally, the amount of con-sumption is increasing due to national economicgrowth, but most primary fuel sources are oil-basedfrom remote, limited reserves. The fragility of theenergy situation is expressed in the oscillation andincrease in prices of services to the population.Another relevant fact is that a significant portion ofenergy consumption, particularly in the south of thecountry, is based on firewood for heating. Thisresource is extracted, distributed and used withouteffective regulation, thus producing pollution bothindoors and at the urban level. Also, energy costsimply substantial spending from family budgets,which in many low-income sectors is insufficient toachieve adequate comfort levels (CDT, 2010).
The city of Concepción is the largest met-ropolitan area in the south of Chile, close to thePacific Ocean and river Bio-Bio (Fig.1). The climateis temperate with warm summers and mild winters.Mean temperature in summer is 17°C and winter
9°C, with greater than 70% regular humidity. Thecity has close to a million inhabitants, mostly livingin the low-density urban peripheries. According toofficial records (INE, 2005), approximately 80% ofdwellings are detached or semi-detached, with alow proportion of terraced housing and apartmentbuildings. The predominant construction system isbrickwork, with an increasing share of timber-framed structures and new industrialized products.Floor areas vary between 30m2 and over 200m2per unit, with an official average of about 60m2,but extensions are frequently added to the originalconstruction (CCHC, 2011).
A half of housing built is government-fund-ed for low-income households, while the remainingmid-to-high income bracket is privately funded,with constant new constructions due to populationgrowth. The average occupation rate is slightly lessthan four inhabitants per dwelling. Housing for allsocio-economic levels is fairly fully-equipped withan average electricity consumption of 2,100kWh/year, and expenses of about US$600/year.Total housing energy consumption for heatingbased on electricity, gas, oil and/or firewood isbetween 5,000 and 20,000 kWh/year, the equiva-
Rodrigo Garcia Alvarado, Jaime Soto, Cristian Muñoz,
Ariel Bobadilla, Rodrigo Herrera, Waldo Bustamante
Abstract
The current depletion of fossil fuels and environmental degradation are requiring greater energy efficiency in buildings,
particularly in the residential sector. However, environmental improvement actions for dwellings are usually based on
general considerations, without identifying the most appropriate measurements to be taken in each case, or reviewing
their application with stakeholders. This article puts forward a strategy to propose effective and feasible modifications
in the design or refurbishment of single-family homes to reduce energy use while maintaining indoor comfort. The
improvements proposed are based on dynamic energy simulations of individual models adapted to local realities that
can be carried out by regular professionals. The process includes the review of studies and information on the geo-
graphic area, and compilation of the constructive features and occupancy data of each house to create a proper ener-
gy behaviour model. Possible improvements to the building are then simulated separately in each model and the results
recorded. Subsequently, a budgetary analysis of these alternatives according to construction costs and financial pro-
jections is carried out in order to identify retrofit packages and consult the opinions of residents and builders. The appli-
cation of this strategy is demonstrated in the study of several houses in Concepción, Chile, where different sets of mea-
sures have been identified to achieve high reductions in energy demand while having low cost and being highly appre-
ciated by the participants. This provides a methodology for developing and validating effective solutions for the envi-
ronmental improvement of existing dwellings and new housing projects.
Keywords: Energy-Efficiency, Simulation Analysis, Single-Family Dwellings, Chile.
ANALYSIS OF ENERGY-EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTSIN SINGLE-FAMILY DWELLINGS IN CONCEPCION,CHILE
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lent of 30 to 130 kWh/year/m2, with differenceslargely dependent on family income. Lower indoortemperatures, averaging between 16°C and 18°C,with humidity problems and indoor air pollution arefrequent in low-income housing (CDT, 2010).These deficient indoor housing conditions are prob-ably due to latest urbanization and milder weatherconditions.
In recent years, several state programmeshave been developed to foster energy efficiency indwellings. Since 2000, compulsory limits havebeen applied for the thermal transmittance of roof-ing in new housing constructions, and in 2007 thiswas expanded to include vertical building enclo-sures. Thermal transmittance limits vary accordingto the country´s different geographic zones. Theseprescriptive measures are the first of their kind inLatin America, but they are insufficient and the cur-rent design, extension and renovation of houses aredone without any energy performance analysis, orthe formal participation of inhabitants or workers tofoster building quality. Also, voluntary energy certi-fication systems and government subsidies for refur-bishment have been established, but without tech-nical assistance to guide modifications in houses.
Various national studies have been carriedout to encourage environmental improvements ofhouses. An investigation commissioned by theChilean government (AC, 2007), studied ten hous-ing types in six cities with six enhancement scenar-ios using a static analysis of heating required to getover 15°C by daily climate oscillations. The resultsconcluded that a detached house in Concepción,could reduce its energy demand from120kWh/year to 30kWh/year by using thermal wallinsulation and reducing infiltration rates, with aninvestment of 15% of the total house cost, which isrecovered in between 4 and 13 years. A later study
(Bustamante, 2009), analysed diverse housingmodels throughout the country.
The analysis included terraced housing inConcepción, which, through dynamic energy simu-lation, estimated a heating energy demandbetween 115kWh/m2/year and 97 kWh/ m2/year.The addition of external insulation to walls showeda 15% reduction in heat loss in single-storey homesand 30% in two-storey homes, without economicanalysis. Also, a study of the Chilean Association ofBuilders (CDT 2010) reviewed about twenty con-struction modifications in different residential hous-ing types and zones. In the centre-south, the exam-ples showed that energy consumption levels of 135to 236 kWh/m2 were reduced by 31%-39% withincreased wall insulation with a net cost of aroundUSD$50/mWh, which could be recovered in thirtyyears.
A recent work (Celis, 2012), reviewed threehousing models in Concepción with four differentscenarios with different thermal mass, insulationand solar orientation, to achieve reductions in ener-gy consumption of up to 70%, but did not involvea review of costs. A similar study in Santiago(Garcia and Croxford, 2012), with different sizedhouses showed a 66% reduction in energy demandand the cost could be financed by subsidies of upto 15% of the home’s surveyed value. Likewise, arecent PhD thesis (Hatt, 2012) carried out a para-metric study with genetic algorithms for two housedesigns, to reach Passiv-Haus standards (consump-tion of less than 15 kWh/m2). However, these stud-ies do not consider their transference to regularpractice for the design or refurbishment ofdwellings.
Different studies about thermal perfor-mance of housing have been also done in somecountries of Latin America, a continent with high cli-
Figure 1. Location of Concepcion, Chile.
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temate variation. In central Argentina, with a moder-ate cold weather, measurements of natural gasconsumption made in multi-family buildings werehigher during the winter season. Some apartmentsin these buildings were monitored, measuring inter-nal relative humidity and temperature variation indifferent rooms, external temperature and horizon-tal solar radiation, but infiltration rates was notmeasured (Fillipin et al, 2011). On the other hand,a low cost housing prototype constructed on a uni-versity campus in south of Brazil was monitoredduring a complete year, measuring hourly outdoorand indoor temperature and relative humidity,which were plotted in a bioclimatic chart. Thehouse was found to be satisfactory even for coldand hot periods of the year (Grigoletti et al, 2008).In Mexico, for the city of Salamanca, with moder-ate cold winters and hot summers, using an existinghouse and a new one, a study was made in orderto propose performance recommendations.Simulation and optimization procedures were usedwithout comparing them with measurements(Griego et al, 2012). In general, energy demandsof dwellings in Latin America are mostly concen-trated in water heating and cooling (CIB 2013).Some nations have initiated promotion of domesticenergy-efficient appliances, voluntary certificationsand renewable sources, but only with generalnorms for thermal calculation (Dosal 2013).
In the northern hemisphere, a doctoral the-sis (Esan, 2012) analysed housing types in Scotlandwith dynamic simulations, identifying significant cut-backs of up to 87% of initial energy demandthrough different improvements, although financialimplications were not reviewed. A review of retrofitprogrammes applied in Germany (Galvin andSunnika-Blank, 2013) identified relevant reductionsachieved. However, these were lower than planneddue to user behaviour. Additionally, a study of refur-bishment actions carried out in China (Xu, 2013)showed strong results and recommended integrat-ing occupant participation.
The North American housing rehabilitationprogramme proposes an automated method ofanalysis for energy simulation and economic opti-mization, based on regional conditions and a ref-erence model (Dave, 2012). Applying this methodto a typical North American house of 128m2 in dif-ferent states (Polly, 2011), the programme deter-mines a dozen measures for sealing, insulating andequipping the dwelling to achieve energy usereductions of 30% with minimum overall costs. Arecent study (Ahsuri, 2011) proposes a methodbased on current value to determine the optimalmoment to refurbish a home, based on the theoryof real options and considering a simulationmodel, energy prices, experience, investment valu-
ation and regulatory climate. Also, Sanguinnetti(2012) carried out a study of refurbishment alter-natives for building facades, integrating the uncer-tainties of simulation, financial models and risksinvolved for investors. The above works deal withconstructions that are bigger and more advancedthan usual in Chile, but suggest procedures ofanalysis that could be applied.
The previously mentioned national studies,involve the simulation of housing models with a setof modifications that enable the suggestion of gen-eral measures, yet there has been no attempt toverify or specify their application. These pro-grammes use global data and do not support thedefinition of particular improvements for existingbuilding or design proposal. Also, the processesare not adjusted to regular professional work andusually do not take into account the stakeholders.Following, a detailed process is proposed thatfocuses on regional conditions and building typesto select effective measures, which are reviewedwith participants.
2 . Methodo logy
This paper presents a procedure to study existingand new single-family dwellings in order to identifyuseful modifications to reduce heating energy con-sumption and ensure thermal comfort. It includes areview of local housing conditions, development ofenergy simulations for particular cases, comparisonof building modifications, economic analysis ofresults, and consultation with residents and buildersin order to suggest feasible and efficient improve-ments, through a process that can be carried out byregular professionals with moderate skills and timeavailability. The proposed methodology was testedon various dwellings in the city of Concepción,Chile, as an example for renovations and newhousing projects in countries with low energy per-formance conditions.
In 2012, fifty undergraduate architecturestudents from Universidad del Bio-Bio were invitedto volunteer to collect data from their own housesor those of relatives. A variety of simulation softwarewas tested and preliminary modelling was done forsome homes to examine conditions and differentalternatives to reduce energy demand.Subsequently, ten graduate architect volunteerswere assigned to carry out the following process ofanalysis.
The cases selected were only single-familydwellings of different sizes, as is most housing in theregion. A case study methodology was adopted(Johansson 2003), in order to analyse the com-plexity of each individual situation and combine
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with other background information, such as in-depth interviews (Taylor and Bogan, 1994) andaccompanying sessions with residents to under-stand their perceptions and expectations (Lindon,2005). Then, the procedure involved selecting dif-ferent housing situations in the zone, and reviewingits constructive condition as well as occupant’sbehaviour. This inquiry complements quantitativedata collection methods and a search for the opin-ions of building professionals.
The strategy proposed aims to generatesubstantial reductions in energy demand for domi-ciliary services while maintaining adequate roomtemperature, humidity and indoor air quality for theoccupants, and involving modifications with lowcosts in relation to overall building value. Theanalysis process can be carried out with ordinaryprofessional skills and proper time for housingdesign or refurbishment. It is based on dynamicsimulations for each housing unit, which lead toproposals reviewed with developers and the inhab-itants. This process includes five stages (Fig.2):
a ) . Da ta col l ec t ion:
This involves gathering the necessary information tosimulate and analyse each case, starting from a sitevisit, and existing plans in previously-constructedhouses, or those still in the design process for newdwellings. The main dimensions of the buildingmust be collected, as well as information aboutimmediate surroundings, solar orientation, size andtype of openings, construction materials used in theenvelope and their thickness, specific floor or roofconditions (if they are ventilated), general occupan-cy patterns and equipment. It is useful to consult thethermal specifications of some local materials toverify the values assumed in the simulation soft-ware. Annual costs of services, family income andthe general cost of the house must be collected forsubsequent economic analysis. It is also necessaryto examine financial conditions, government fund-ing programmes, building costs, and energy pro-jections for a specific region in order to review eco-nomic assumptions. Likewise, the climate data used
in the simulations should be verified according tometeorological records and local studies of hous-ing energy conservation to further determine condi-tions and suggested measures.
b). Base Simulation:
This consists of carrying out a dynamic thermal cal-culation of the specific house through software inline with building professionals’ skills and funding.Basic geometric modelling must be done accordingto the data collected (In new projects the digitaldesign can be transferred directly.). As a reference,a simulation can be run according to default soft-ware values, other studies, or global certifications.A more precise analysis requires a simulation usingvalues specific to the zone and building type.
c ) . S imulat i on o f A l te rna t i ves:
Several modifications of the same model can bemade according to general recommendations toreduce energy demand (Table 1). Each measureshould be simulated separately in order to review itsparticular effect on thermal performance.Additionally, some specific possibilities can be sim-ulated to review variations.
d ) . Economic Ana ly s i s :
This involves the assessment of the simulated alter-
Figure 2. Schema of the process.
Table 1. Alternatives to Reduce Energy Demand in an
Average Case Dwelling.
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natives to create “packages” of the most effectivemeasures which combine energy savings and a lowbudget, and a review of their financial implications.The cost of each modification can be calculatedaccording to general unit prices and rapid survey-ing of building volume. Subsequently, actions canbe ordered according to their efficiency and accu-mulated cost to define sets of energy-saving mea-sures. The compatibility of some modifications mustbe reviewed and simulations of the packages car-ried out to verify the reduction in energy demandfor heating, and estimate savings.
e ) . Consu l ta t ion:
This entails to explain the defined packages to theresidents of the houses, as well as constructionmanagers and workers, in order to verify that theyare understood and accepted. The modifications todesign or refurbishment work can be selected andprogrammed. Finally, the participants’ opinion ofthe tasks could be considered to adjust future pro-cedures.
3. App l i ca t ion and Resu l t s
This procedure was tested on ten houses, betweenMay and September of 2013. The professionalsinvolved were given approximately six hours’ train-ing in simulation software and attended short week-ly meetings. Environmental monitoring instrumentswere installed in two periods of one week in sum-
mer and winter. At each stage the experience hadthe following results:
a) Data Collection
This task was accomplished with a record form anda house visit during which residents were inter-viewed and photographs taken. This took a coupleof hours and was carried out by the same profes-sional who completed all the subsequent analysisof each house. However, new visits were sometimesnecessary to revise certain details during theprocess. Some occupancy conditions appeared tobe overestimated by the residents, but did not havea significant impact on the studies. Occupants werereticent to respond to questions about some eco-nomic aspects and the values given seemed ratherlower than expected. Although previous consenthad been given, the actual monitoring process inhomes was postponed by some inhabitants duringdevice installation. Also, differences were noted onaccount of seasonal climate variation in the zone.The process could be perfected to collect all the rel-evant information in one short visit using animproved survey and a trained observer.From the ten dwellings recorded, four aredetached, and other four semidetached, and twoterraced (by enlargements). These figures corre-spond to national housing percentages. Most hous-es have two storeys (Fig.3), with the first level of sin-gle-leaf masonry without additional insulation, thesecond of a timber frame with polystyrene boards,
Figure 3. Images of selected dwellings in the study.
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single-glazed windows, and heating with firewoodor portable gas heaters.
The floor areas vary between 36 m2 and217 m2 with diverse layouts and ages of construc-tion from 2 to 60 years (Table 2). The number ofoccupants varied between 2 and 5, with a range ofspending on domiciliary services of betweenUS$1,000 and US$10,000 per year, approximate-ly dependent on the house sizes and family incomelevels. The lower income homes showed tempera-ture and humidity levels below and indoor pollutionlevels above comfort ranges over significant peri-ods in the winter months and part of summer.Dwellings of families with medium and high wagesexhibited more proper indoor conditions, althoughwith occasional pollution, and more than US$3000
per year in heating expenditures. These conditionsare similar to those found in general studies ofhousing in the region.
b ) . Base S imula t ion
After collection of data, a model of each house wasdeveloped (Fig. 4) using the software DesignBuilderwith EnergyPlus as the simulation engine. Some dif-ficulties were encountered regarding the coherenceof the overall layout and rooms, the description ofenvelope and abutting walls (as adiabatic elementswithout thermal transmittance), terrain tempera-tures, floors in contact with the ground, and natu-rally ventilated roofs. Internal energy gains weregenerally established to be 2.5 W/m2 daily withoutequipment. The weather database used wasCHL_Concepcion.856820 from IWEC(International Weather for Energy Calculation) files,developed by ASHRAE (American Society ofHeating, Refrigerating and Air-ConditioningEngineers).
General conditions were reviewed throughseveral comparative models and data from someexisting houses to verify their variation and deter-mine features closer to those of local dwellings. Areference simulation for each case was madeaccording to national certification requirements,with air exchange rates of 1 ACH and 20-25°C asannual indoor comfort temperatures. Subsequently,
Figure 4. Models for simulation of energy performance.
Table 2. Data of the houses studied.
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a modified model was created with comfort levelsfrom the adaptive model (based on ASHRAE,2010) corresponding to 18-24°C in this zone, andair exchange rates according to results of the leak-age tests carried out (using a blower door at 50papressurised and depressurised). This gaveexchange rates from 0.7 to 2.7 ACH, with largervalues produced in older houses. In this way a“base simulation” was created, with a final energydemand report. The modelling and calculationtook eight to ten hours per case, depending on thecorrections required, but it is estimated that in thefuture this could be decreased to approximatelyfour hours for similar housing.
The base simulations of the homes showedtotal heating demand levels of 5,000 to 20,000kWh in cold months (from May to October), corre-sponding to around 50 to 180 kWh/m2 (Fig. 5).These results are in line with other studies men-tioned previously, and are closer to actual expens-es in services (converted to energy consumptionvalues). However, this is only the case in high andmedium-income houses where comfort levels aregenerally maintained. Newer and moderate-sizehouses have lower energy demand; older and big-ger ones present higher values. In warm months,the simulated energy demand per house is closer to2,000 kWh for heating and around 1,000 kWh forcooling. This low requirement (and the high cost ofelectricity) makes it unprofitable for homes in thisregion to install active cooling equipment, and alsoin common practice heating devices are not usual-ly used in this period. Then, the simulations demon-strated that in all houses studied, most of annualenergy demand comes from heating during thecold season. The models created according tonational standards demonstrated overall results upto 50% higher than those developed with adaptedconditions. The building features identified by thesimulations as producing the most heat transmit-tance were, in turn, walls, ventilation and air leak-
age, thus suggesting priority conditions to beimproved in these dwellings. The thermal resistancevalues calculated by the software for the construc-tion elements were: from 2.6 to 2.9 m2K/W infloors; 1.7 to 2.7 m2K/W in first storey walls; 0.6to 1.6 m2K/W in second storey walls; 5.4 to 5.9m2K/W in windows (single glazing), and 0.4 to 4.8m2K/W in ceilings depending on the addition ofinsulation.
c ) . S imu la t ion of A l te rna t i ves
Previous studies of housing in the region (AC,2007; Bustamante, 2009; CDT, 2010) recom-mend reducing air infiltration and heat transmit-tance of the envelope to improve energy perfor-mance. Taking into consideration this research inconjunction with the cases studied, a set of eightmodifications was defined (Table 1), four toincrease tightness by sealing exterior doors, windowframes, edges in perimeter walls, and electrical andplumbing penetrations; and another four to add anexternal insulation finishing system (EIFS) in the firstor the second storey, changing all windows to dou-ble-glazed panes and placing further insulationunder the roof. The thickness of insulation wasestablished at first based on regular products in themarket, and later adjusted by sensitivity analysis.These modifications were then simulated separate-ly in each model. Also, one to six particular mea-sures defined by each professional in charge werealso simulated. Resulting energy demand figures forheating in the winter months were compared tothose of the base simulation. The values obtaineddemonstrated a range from slightly higher heatingdemand, to a reduction of up to 25%. Energy usereductions were lower with sealing treatments andhigher with additional insulation. Sensitivity analy-ses were carried out on some alternatives. Forexample, initially increasing the thickness of exter-nal insulation reduced heat loss by up to 15% (withlower cost increases), while further increases inthicknesses gave less notable benefits. The study ofalternatives, including the proposals for specificimprovements, took between three and five hoursto complete for each case study, but could bereduced with more experience.
d ) . Economic Ana ly s i s :
Subsequently, the costs of the alternatives were cal-culated based on a general index of constructionprices and adjusted according to local suppliers.The budget of each modification varied from US$100 for sealing one exterior door to US$ 6,000 for
Figure 5. Heating demand per case.
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changing all windows in a larger house. Then,refurbishment “packages” (called A, B and C) weredetermined with initial budgets fixed at 5%, 10%and 15% of total house value, according to theanalysis of family income levels and current statesubsides (MINVU, 2007). The different measureswere then organised in order of effectiveness (by thecost of each kWh saved), and accumulated costswere calculated. Groups of measures were thenselected according to the budget for each package.The packages are composed of different groups ofmeasures for each case study. Sealing measureswere largely included because their budgets arelow and they produce good savings, althoughsmall compared to the possible benefits resultingfrom the totality of the modifications. Extra insula-tion or new windows were added according to thepackage budget and particular features of thehouse.
Finally, simulations of each package werecarried out. The reduced-cost packages, with bud-gets lower than 5% of house value, achieved ener-gy savings of between 15% and 30%. The interme-diate packages, costing less than 10% of the priceof the home, showed reductions between 20% and50%. The higher investment packages, with bud-gets nearing 15% of dwelling value, gave energysavings of 30% to 70% (proportionate to housesize). The most effective relationships (lowest cost tohighest impact) were achieved in the older, low-income housing, which is eligible for governmentsubsidies. More moderate results were achieved inthe newer, bigger homes, but savings were demon-strated to be profitable (repaid over a period closeto 5 years). The financial analysis of the packageswas carried out according to ASTM E917 (ASTM,2010), and took around two to four hours per case,although this process could be automated.
Table 3 shows the list of improvements sim-ulated for case 5 with results of energy savings (inkWh per year), budget of execution (in US dollars),and efficiency (in cost per kWh saved). Table 4 dis-plays the same list ordered by efficiency values withaccumulated savings and cost. Table 5 shows thepackages defined for case 5 by investment amountand actions included according to their accumulat-ed costs. The last two columns show net presentvalue of maintenance for 20 years (includingincreasing energy prices) and final change in housecost.
e ) . Consu l tat i on
Lastly, brief presentations of suggested modifica-tions were made during consultation sessions withat least two adult occupants and a consultant per
home (Fig.7). Separate meetings were held withbuilding workers. The participants each completeda brief questionnaire with a numerical evaluation(from 1 to 5) of their understanding, acceptanceand appraisement of each package, while also not-ing down any specific comments. It took a little lessthan two hours to prepare each presentation(based on a similar format), and an equivalent timeperiod to carry out the consultations.
In general, participants showed interest intaking part in the process, although there was somereticence to the costs involved. Workers demon-strated good disposition, and attention to technicalprocedures and general possibilities. The responsesto the questionnaires and subsequent conversationsdemonstrated a high degree of understanding ofthe measurements. Participant approval to executethe proposals was rather more moderate, thoughappraisement levels were also high (Fig.8). Somecomments were noted regarding the aestheticimpact of the modifications, and acknowledgementof the building features and their relationship toindoor comfort.
To date, a refurbishment package has beenimplemented in one of the lower-income homes(Fig.9), as a public example of how to foster ener-
Table 3. List of Improvements Simulated for Case 5.
Table 4. Improvements ordered by efficiency for Case 5.
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gy savings and to test the performance of the mea-sures applied. A further three homes are imple-menting the proposed measures themselves, moti-vated by the study carried out.
Conc lu s ions
This research presents a strategy to propose ener-gy-efficient modifications in existing and new hous-ing through simulations and consultation. The pro-cedure was reviewed in ten single-family homes inConcepción, Chile, with winter heating demands.
Each case study was examined with local profes-sionals in about 25 working hours, which could bereduced to less than half in future studies with moreexperience and protocols for fieldwork and simula-tion, although dwelling variety or weather couldextend the process. The analysis can be integratedinto the renovation or design of medium and high-income houses as an additional study, or as part ofstate programmes in low-income houses, with alabour cost of approximately 0.2% in relation tooverall construction budget.
The proposed measures in the cases stud-ied are aimed at reducing air infiltration and
Table 5. Definitions of Packages for Case 5.
Figure 7. Images of consultation of packages suggested.
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increasing envelope insulation. Sealing doors andwindows, and additional wall insulation are repeat-ed measures. The packages, all with total construc-tion budgets of between 5% and 15% of housevalue, have estimated reductions in heating energydemand of between 15% and 30% in larger hous-es, and 30% and 70% in smaller homes. The mod-ifications could be covered by current governmentsubsidies in low-income homes or loans in others,and they are understood and considered relevantby residents and builders. Additionally, consultationcreates a general consciousness of housing perfor-mance.
In conclusion, this procedure could beapplied to improve dwelling conditions in theregion and in other countries with similar condi-tions. Nonetheless, some uncertainties should bemanaged in the process, regarding the descriptionof building components, air leakage rates and
comfort levels. The use of this strategy in otherhousing types or zones requires general reviews toback up the analysis conditions. The repertoire ofimprovements could also be broadened withdesign alterations or mechanical systems. Likewise,the participation of construction professionals andoccupants could be more structured in the processof assessing the application of packages. The pro-cedure could be systematised on an integratedcomputing platform, to be used in large-scalerefurbishment or building programmes. Finally, it isimportant to verify the modifications executed inorder to refine the improvement of indoor housingconditions.
Acknowledgments
Research FONDECYT Project 1120165
Figure 8. Mean responses of the stakeholder question-
naires.
Figure 9. Images of improvements implemented in Case 5.
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DAVE R. 2012, Pathways to Cost-Effective Retrofit Savings,National Renewable Energy Laboratory, September 24th.,Golden, USA.
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Au thor (s ) :
Rodrigo Garcia AlvaradoUniversidad del Bío-BíoAvda. Collao 1202, Concepcion, ChileEmail: [email protected]
Jaime SotoUniversidad del Bío-BíoAvda. Collao 1202, Concepcion, ChileEmail: [email protected]
Cristian MuñozCITEC - Universidad del Bío-BíoAvda. Collao 1202, Concepcion, ChileEmail: [email protected]
Ariel BobadillaCITEC - Universidad del Bío-BíoAvda. Collao 1202, Concepcion, ChileEmail: [email protected]
Rodrigo HerreraUniversidad de ConcepcionVíctor Lamas 1290, Concepción, ChileEmail: [email protected]
Waldo BustamanteUniversidad Catolica de ChileEl Comendador 1916, Santiago, ChileEmail: [email protected]
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1 i n t roduc t ion
individual metering and charging (iMc) allowsenergy costs to be apportioned among tenants inmulti-apartment buildings based on their own ener-gy use. this results in reduced energy use due to anincreased saving behavior by the tenants (schou,1982; scott, 1991). A 10 to 20 percent reductionis realistic regarding heat use (Berndtsson, 2003;Boverket, 2006). energy savings in the housing sec-tor are encouraged by the european Parliamentthrough the directive 2012/27/eu, which requiresiMc of heat to the extent that it is cost-efficient andtechnically feasible.
several european countries use iMc forheat but only a few countries, e.g. denmark, pre-scribe it by law. the fastest growing development ofiMc in recent years has occurred in china. sincethe 1990s, china has gone from not using iMc atall, to both producing and installing about2,000,000 sets of meters in 2010 alone (Wang,2011). due to the possibility to reduce energy usewith iMc and the recommendation from theeuropean Parliament, a large increase in iMc
installations is expected in europe. An argumentagainst installation is the inaccuracy of current iMcmethods.
in the eu-directive (2012/27/eu) two tech-niques are mentioned for iMc: individual con-sumption meters and individual heat cost alloca-tors. individual consumption meters measure theflow and temperature of water circulated in theradiator system. heat cost allocators measure heatconsumption at each radiator in an apartment.either of these two techniques can be used as amethod to measure the supplied energy to anapartment. Another method, not mentioned in theeu-directive, is temperature metering which meansthat the heating cost is based instead on measure-ments of the actual temperatures through sensors incertain locations in the apartment. this method hasbeen chosen primary by municipally-owned realestate companies in sweden, which are overrepre-sented among those few per cent who haveinstalled iMc in sweden (siggelsten & olander,2013).
the energy supplied to an apartment is notnecessarily equal to the actual energy needed orused. Poor thermal insulation between adjacent
Simon Siggelsten, Birgitta Nordquist, Stefan Olander
Abstract
Individual metering and charging (IMC) allows energy costs to be apportioned among tenants in multi-apartment build-
ings based on their own energy use. This can result in reduced energy use due to an increased saving behaviour by
tenants, which has caught the attention of the European Parliament. In the EU-directive 2012/27/EU there is a require-
ment for IMC to be installed by December 31, 2016 in multi-apartment buildings.
Two techniques are mentioned in the directive for IMC: individual consumption meters and individual heat cost alloca-
tors. Either of these two techniques can be used as a method to measure the supplied energy to an apartment. Another
method, not mentioned in the EU-directive, is temperature metering which means that the heating cost is instead based
on measurements of the actual temperatures through sensors in certain locations in the apartment. However, some
shortcomings have been identified with the aforementioned methods.
The purpose of this study is to investigate how internal heat production, solar radiation, an apartment’s location within
the building and local defects in the building envelope affect the accuracy of IMC. The Energy demands of three apart-
ments in different locations within the building have been simulated in the computer program VIP-Energy. The results of
energy calculations prove that the accuracy of IMC is highly questionable in some of the investigated cases. The impli-
cation of the study is that it is difficult to measure the actual heat used for an individual apartment, which obstructs accu-
rate and fair apportioning of heating costs among individual tenants.
Keywords: EU-Directive, Energy Use, IMC, Apartment Building.
AnAlysis of the AccurAcy of individuAl heAtMetering And chArging.
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apartments means that heating energy will be trans-mitted from one apartment to another, whichmakes it difficult to say which apartment used whatamount of energy. gafsi and lefebvre (2003) haveconducted a study of this problem and investigatedan apartment located in the middle of a building,together with meteorological data of two weeks indecember in spain. their results show that it is pos-sible to gain up to about 90 per cent of the heatingenergy needed from the surrounding neighbors.Andersson (2001) has investigated the even moreextreme location of an apartment in an existingbuilding in sweden, a relatively small apartment(55 m2) surrounded by adjacent apartments withthe exception of one side only. the results show thatit is possible to gain more than 95 per cent of theheating energy needed from the surroundingneighbors.
the problem with heat transmissionbetween adjacent apartments can be partly avoid-ed by measuring the actual temperature in theapartments instead. Measuring the actual tempera-ture in the apartment can also pose problems, e.g.deleterious window ventilation. the problem withwindow ventilation is that it lowers the indoor tem-perature, which reduces the heating cost for thetenant at the same time as it increases the heatleading in turn to increased heating costs for thelandlord.
the main purpose of this study is to investigate howthe accuracy of iMc is affected by:
1. internal heat production and solar radiation.2. An apartment’s location in the building. 3. local defects in the building envelope.
the aim is to investigate the extent to which theseparameters affect the result of iMc in combinationwith different family configurations.
2 research method
the main tool used in this investigation is the com-puter program viP-energy (strusoft®, 2010), whichis a series of software modules covering the calcu-lation of the energy balance for an entire building.some of the most important factors influencing theneed for energy are the outdoor climate and thebuilding’s exposure to sun and wind together withthe building’s ability to store heat. viP-energy isbased on a dynamic energy equation using a phys-ical model of the building and real weather data.the program contains calculation methods for heatstorage, air infiltration, solar radiation, transmissionthrough the ground, heat pumps etc. (ibid.).
three apartments in different locations intwo multi-apartment buildings have been simulat-ed. differently located apartment imply differentamounts of exterior area (building envelope) anddifferent exposures to solar radiation. the amountof exterior area together with the u-value will influ-ence the extent of the heat loss due to transmission.the two different multi-apartment buildings havedifferent u-values. the first multi-apartment build-ing is an average modern building built at thebeginning of the 21st century. the second buildingis representative for the construction intensive peri-od 1961 to 1975 and represents approx. 25 percent of today’s multi-apartment buildings insweden (Boverket, 1999).
internal heat production also influences abuilding’s heat demand. for example, a largerfamily will contribute a higher amount of body heatand heat from electrical appliances compared to asmaller family. in order to investigate the influenceof internal heat production, three different settingsfor internal heat production are used to representdifferent family sizes when making the simulationsin viP-energy.
3 input da ta
three different family configurations and three dif-ferent apartment locations in two different buildingwill give 18 different cases in total. All the calcula-tions, which are made with viP-energy, are basedon the assumption that all apartments and stairwellsare set to the same indoor temperature as in theinvestigated apartments. this means in practice thatheat transmission will only occur through the build-ing envelope and not between adjacent apartmentsor the stairwell.
the climate input data is for Malmö locat-ed in the south of sweden. All calculations arebased on a time period of six months, from 1st ofoctober to 31st of March, which is the typical sea-son when heating is needed in Malmö. the indoortemperature is set to 22.3 °c, the average indoortemperature for swedish multi-apartment buildings(Boverket, 2009).
3.1 Two mul t i -apar tment bu i ld ings wi ththree apar tment s
the first multi-apartment building, henceforthreferred to as Building 1, is a typical modern multi-apartment building with average figures for multi-apartment buildings built in sweden during theperiod 1996 to 2005. Building 1 has a loadbear-ing structure of concrete with 195 mm thick walls
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between apartments and 250 mm thick floor slabswith 22 mm wooden floors. the u-value for theouter walls is 0.20 W/m2K and that for the ceilingis 0.12 W/m2K. the windows are triple-glazed witha u-value of 2.0 W/m2K.
the second multi-apartment building,henceforth referred to as Building 2, is a typicalbuilding from the construction intensive period1961 to 1975 in sweden. the loadbearing struc-ture of concrete has 150 mm thick walls separatingapartments and 160 mm thick floor slabs with 22mm wooden floor. the u-value for the externalwalls is 0.37 W/m2K and that for the roof is 0.28W/m2K. the windows are doubled-glazed with au-value of 2.7 W/m2K. All of these u-values arerepresentative for their time (eriksson, 1993). All theabove figures for Buildings 1 and 2 are set out intable 1.
neither building has been modified withheat recovery from ventilation air. the amount ofventilation in all apartments is set to 0.5 airchanges per hour, in compliance with swedish reg-ulations.
three apartments (A, B and c) have beensimulated with different conditions, such as floor,orientation and the area abutting on adjacentapartments, see figures 1 and 2. these conditionstogether with the apartments’ layouts are usedidentically for Buildings 1 and 2. the layout is theoriginal for the multi-apartment building which
serves as a model for building 2. Apartment A islocated on floor two out of three at the north gableof the building. the apartment is surrounded byapartments below, above and on one side.Apartment B is also located on floor two but in themiddle of the building with apartments above,below and on both sides. Apartment c is locatedon the top floor at the south gable of the building,with apartments below and on one side, resulting inthe maximal area of outer walls and roof. the lay-outs of the apartments also affect the amount ofarea adjacent to other apartments, which can beseen in figure 2. All three apartments have thesame window sizes and orientation, except for theadditional small windows on the gables for apart-ments A and c. All three are two bedroom apart-ments with 74 square meters of living space. in thefollowing, the apartments are sometimes represent-ed by a number, e.g. apartment A1. this refers toapartment A in Building 1.
All apartments in this study have identicalwall areas adjacent to the stairwells. the studyassumes that both stairwells in the buildings havethe same indoor temperature and for that reasonthe heat transmissions between the stairwells andthe apartments are excluded, i.e. viewed as a non-influencing parameter. therefore all apartmentshave been simulated individually in viP-energy andnot as a complete building unit.
Table 1. Areas and U-values for the building envelope.
Figure 1. The locations of the three apartments in the building.
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3.2 Fami l y cons te l la t ions
three different family sizes have been simulated toinvestigate their effect on the energy balance and,in turn, the consequences for iMc. the intention isto simulate the limit of family sizes that can beexpected to be living in a two bedroom apartmentwith 74 m2 of living space. the body heat gain isestimated according to standard values fromfanger (1997) based on the following activities:
• resting 46 W/m2 (square meter body surface)• sitting activity 58 W/m2• calm standing activity 70 W/m2• normal standing activity 93 W/m2• domestic work 116 W/m2
the internal heat production based from lightingand electrical appliances is estimated on the basisof average household electricity usage, compiledby the swedish energy Agency (energimyndigheten,2007). the starting point for occupancy A is a sin-gle adult who does not spend too much time athome. he or she is away from home 12 hours perday and watches television 1 hour per day.occupancy B consists of two adults spending 14hours per day at home, representing a normal-sized family for this size of apartment. they watchtelevision 1.5 hour per day. occupancy c consistsof two adults and three children. their time spentaway from home varies for all family membersbetween 4 to 10 hours per day. their television ison for 3 hours per day. All assumptions about thethree different family sizes have resulted in differentvalues for body heat gain and internal heat pro-duction for each family, which are all presented intable 2.
3.3 Envelope defec t s
the intention is also to study the significance of twoplausible defects in the building envelope, and theirinfluence on the result of iMc. the first defect is a3 cm gap without insulation wool around the win-dows on the western side of the building. the sec-ond defect is a broken frame in one window, rais-ing the u-value of the window by an estimated 0.3W/m2K. Both defects can be seen as plausible: thefirst defect is because of carelessness during con-struction while the second defect can occur when awindow is old. All these simulations are also madewith viP-energy.
4 resu l t s
the energy calculations are isolated to include onlythe energy usage for heating connected to the spe-cific apartment. this means that the figures cannotbe compared with standard energy calculations foran entire building, which include hot water, resi-dential electricity, heating of the stairwells and othercommon spaces etc. All figures in the followingtables are based on a time period of six months,from 1st of october to 31st of March.
Figure 2. An illustration of the layouts.
Table 2. Body heat gain and internal heat production divid-
ed by the apartment size.
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4.1 Suppl ied hea t
Supplied heat includes the four categories: suppliedenergy, internal heat production, body heat gainand solar radiation. Supplied energy is the need forpurchased/delivered energy. these four categoriesare presented in tables 3 and 4, for Building 1 andBuilding 2 respectively.
internal heat production, solar radiationand body heat gains have significance for energysupplied to all apartments. in apartment B1, theneed for supplied energy increases by 27 per centfor occupancy A compared to occupancy B, anddecreases by 39 per cent for occupancy c (seetable 3). this high percentage difference in apart-ment B1 is due only to its lesser need for suppliedheat. With a larger need for supplied heat, as inapartment c2, the percentage difference is loweras there is an 11 per cent increase for occupancyA compared to occupancy B, and a 17 per centdecrease with occupancy c.
solar radiation varies over the season andis most intense in the summertime when there is noneed for heating. Between the first of october andthe end of March in sweden, solar radiation will notcontribute much heat. however, it is possible to seea small difference in solar radiation depending onthe orientation and whether the windows are dou-
ble-glazed or triple-glazed. A larger difference canbe seen with a large difference in window area.
4.2 The apa r tmen t ' s loca t ion in thebu i ld ing
there is a difference in energy use between thethree apartments. Apartment B in the middle of thebuilding with surrounding neighbors has a favor-able location because of the limited area of exteri-or walls and ceilings. for example, apartments A1and c1 need 30 and 66 per cent more suppliedenergy respectively compared to apartment B1,with the normal occupancy B setting (see table 5).in Building 2, which has a lower thermal insulationstandard of the building envelope, a comparisonbetween the three apartments will result in a smallpercentage increase. however, it can be misleadingto look at the percentage difference alone.Although there is a 106 per cent difference in needfor supplied energy between apartments B1 andc1; in the case of occupancy c, the difference inabsolute numbers is only 24.6 kWh/m2 or 1820kWh (multiplied by 74 m2) for the whole heatingseason. the same comparison in Building 2 showsa 3175 kWh difference (+121 %).
Table 3. The supplied heat for building 1, from 1st of October to 31st of March.
Table 4. The supplied heat for building 2, from 1st of October to 31st of March.
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4.3 Local defects in the building envelope
the two local defects simulated in this study canboth be seen as major defects. despite this, theconsequences in extra need for supplied energycan be perceived as quite small. the largest differ-ence in need for supplied energy, 6.5 per cent,appears in apartment B1 where there is lack ofinsulation wool around some of the windows (seetable 6). Building 1 has a building envelope of fair-ly high thermal standard and a defect will thereforebe more significant in Building 1 compared toBuilding 2, which had has less thermal insulationfrom the beginning.
5 d iscuss ion
5.1 internal heat production and solar radiation
the large amount of solar radiation and internalheat production will lower the need for suppliedenergy, which in this case means that the tenant hasto pay less for heating the apartment. this is con-sistent with one of the basic thoughts concerningiMc: if someone uses less heat they should alsopay less. however, internal heat production in com-bination with compensation for an apartment’s lessfavorable location in a building can affect the accu-racy of iMc, which will be explained later.
When the indoor temperature is measured,internal heat production significant affects the accu-racy. some of the internal heat production comesfrom electrical energy for which the tenant normal-ly has to pay. At the same time, internal heat pro-duction lowers the need for supplied energy, whichin this case will benefit the landlord or, in some
cases, the energy company. this works in bothways. for example, occupancy A produces lessinternal heat compared to occupancy B and c. forthe same indoor temperature, occupancy A wouldactually require a higher heat supply than occu-pancy B or c. however, their costs will be the sameand it is the landlord who has to stand the extracost.
the difference in internal heat productionbetween the two extreme occupancies in this studyis, in total, 26.0 kWh/m2 or 1924 kWh (multipliedby 74 m2) over the heating season. how much thisis in relation to the need for supplied energy differsbetween the apartments. for example in apartmentB1, the supplied energy decreases by 39 per centfor occupancy c compared with occupancy B. inapartment c2, the supplied energy decreases byjust 17 per cent for occupancy c compared withoccupancy B. this means that the percentage dif-ferences depend on the apartment’s need for sup-plied energy, which in turn depends on the thermalstandard of the building envelope together with theapartment’s location in the building.
Another potential shortcoming with internalheat production is that it can temporarily raise theindoor temperature. this could mean higher heat-ing costs, when in reality it should lower costs. if notemperature sensors are placed in rooms where themost internal heat is produced, as in the kitchenand the bathroom, this shortcoming can be mostlyavoided. But not including the whole apartmentcan be perceived as incomplete measurements.solar radiation can also temporarily raise theindoor temperature. however, this study does notreveal much influence from the sun during the sixcolder months in sweden. it could be sensible tostop the measurements in the spring time well
Table 6. Increase of supplied energy because of a local defect in the building envelope.
Table 5. The need for supplied energy depending on the apartments’ location.
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landerbefore solar radiation begins to affect the indoor
temperature too much.
5.2 An apartment’s location in the building
the apartment’s location in a building significantlyaffects its need for supplied energy. Between apart-ments B2 and c2 supplied energy differs by asmuch as 85 per cent. An interesting observation isthat the percentage difference decreases in line witha higher thermal insulation standard for the build-ing envelope. Between apartments B1 and c1 itdiffers by 66 per cent, a difference of 19 per centcompared to Building 2. in this study’s mostextreme case, for occupancy c, the differencebetween apartment B and c in Building 1 is 1820kWh for the whole heating season, and in Building2 the difference is 3175 kWh. this means that theissue of different heating needs, because of theapartment's location in the building, is of less sig-nificance in modern well-insulated buildings. indenmark you have to compensate for an apart-ment’s less favorable location when using iMc(Bygge- og Boligstyrelsen, 1996). in sweden, this ismostly done when installing iMc in an existingbuilding.
With a percentage discount, depending onthe apartment’s location, the measured amount ofenergy is reduced. A larger area of exterior wallsand roof will be compensated by a higher percent-age discount. the question is whether this truly rep-resents reality?
the amount of internal heat productionfrom the occupancies is a factor that could influ-ence a percentage discount for an apartment’s lessfavorable location in a building. this can be shownfrom a comparison between the two extreme occu-pancies A and c. in apartment c1, which has aless favorable location, occupancy A needs 73.9kWh/m2 in supplied energy. At the same timeoccupancy c needs just 47.9 kWh/m2 for thesame apartment. the assumption that apartment cis compensated with a 10 per cent discount for theless favorable location in the building, this will resultin a discount for occupancy A of 547 kWh (73.9 x0.10 x 74 m2). for occupancy c the discount willonly be 354 kWh, a difference of 193 kWh.
instead of a percentage discount therecould be a fixed reduction based on a calculatedincreased amount of heat transmitted through exte-rior walls and ceilings. this would exclude all exter-nal influence on the discount such as the familysize. Another option could be to not give any dis-count at all related to the apartment’s location, asin germany where the common standard is not tocompensate for any unfavorable location. it is to benoted that germany has a very different view on
iMc compared to sweden due to various historicalevents (siggelsten and hansson, 2010). to com-pensate a gable apartment for its greater need forheat does not have to be a matter of course. it maywell be the other way around.
Local de fect s on the bu i ld ing enve lope
A potential shortcoming with measuring the sup-plied energy is a local defect in the building enve-lope. But its significance to the need of suppliedenergy is much less than the apartment’s locationin the building. the simulated defects in this studycreated a small increase in supplied energy, with aslightly higher percentage increase in the well-insu-lated Building 1 compared to Building 2 ( seetable 6). in all three apartments in Building 1 theincreased amount of supplied energy is 163 kWh(2.2 x 74) due to lack of insulation wool. the mainissue is that the tenant has to pay for the increasedamount of energy needed because of any localdefect, which really should be paid by the landlord.in addition, the landlord loses an economic incen-tive to repair the local defect or, even worse, toinspect the building envelope for any defects.
A local defect in the building envelope willonly have a small impact of the need for suppliedenergy and should not affect the indoor tempera-ture appreciably. however, the perceived (opera-tive) temperature can be affected by downdraughtsfrom defective windows or by cold radiation fromsurfaces with a poor thermal insulation standard.the effect of having a large difference between themeasured indoor temperature and operative tem-perature should not be underestimated, especiallyif heat is charged by the indoor temperature.
6 conc lu s ions
it is important to emphasize that the results from thisstudy may be different when other input data suchas the climate and type of building are introduced.for example, the issue of different heating needsbecause of the apartment’s location in the buildingwas less significant in the modern well-insulatedbuilding.
the implication of these shortcomings isthat it is very difficult to measure the actual heatused for an individual apartment. this makes isalso difficult to apportion heating costs among ten-ants in a way equivalent to the actual energy usedfor heating. the investigated iMc methods affects,and are affected by, family size, the proportion ofheating costs between tenant and landlord, andalso between tenants.
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A large family contributes a larger amountof internal heat production compared with a smallfamily, which in turn reduces the need for suppliedenergy. this means a lower heating cost for thelarge family if measuring the supplied heat. ifinstead the heat is charged by the indoor tempera-ture, this results in a higher heating cost.
the location of an apartment in the build-ing has a large influence on the apartment’s heat-ing demand. in this case the choice of iMc methodaffects apportionment of the heating costs amongthe tenants. When measuring the supplied energy,a tenant living for example on a gable apartmentwill have higher heating costs compared to living inan apartment located in the middle of the building.if instead the heat is charged by the indoor temper-ature the location of the apartment should normal-ly not affect the heating costs. the exception of thisis if the building envelope has a poor insulationstandard which in turn will affect the operative tem-perature indoors.
individual heat metering and charging isneeded to involve the tenants and make them con-scious of energy use and cost, with the possibleresult of reduced energy use in multi-apartmentbuildings. one way to reduce the significance ofthe shortcomings is to have a partly fixed and apartly variable cost for the heat. having the heatingcosts as, for example, 50 per cent fixed and 50 percent variable should in theory decrease the signifi-cance of this shortcoming by 50 per cent. how itwill affect tenants’ saving behavior is difficult to say,more research is needed in this matter. Moreresearch is also needed to develop a method forindividual heat metering that is more accurate andless vulnerable to shortcomings.
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Andersson, g. 2001, Kv Jankowitz – Individuell värmemät-
ning och inverkan av värmeövergång mellan lägenheter, Bengt
dahlgren AB, Arbetsnummer: 50-8351101. göteborg. (in
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Berndtsson, l. 2003, Individuell värmemätning i Svenska
flerbostadshus – en lägesrapport, swedish energy Agency,
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in sweden, isBn: 91-7147-945-7, Karlskrona. (in swedish)
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ingsuppdrag beträffande byggnaders tekniska utformning m.m,
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Author(s):
simon siggelstenurban studies, Malmö university205 06 Malmö, swedenemail: [email protected]
Birgitta nordquist, Building service, lund universityP.o. Box 118, 221 00 lund, sweden.email: [email protected]
stefan olander, construction Management, lund universityP.o. Box 118, 221 00 lund, sweden.email: [email protected]
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Ju
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014.
Ene
rgy
Savi
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olic
ies
for
Hou
sing
Bas
ed o
n W
rong
Ass
umpt
ions
?
I n t roduc t ion
In general the residential sector is considered to beresponsible for 30 per cent of the total energy con-sumption. The energy saving potential of the build-ing stock is large and is considered to be the mostcost efficient sector to contribute to the CO2 reduc-tion ambitions. However, as long as the price ofrenewable energy is still not competitive with fossilenergy, the energy saving goals can only bereached if they are supported by strict governmen-tal policies and mandatory regulations. Followingthe Energy Performance of Buildings Directive(EPBD), the European member states aim toimprove energy efficiency of dwellings by energyperformance regulations for new dwellings and theissuing of Energy Performance Certificates for theexisting housing stock.
In the Netherlands, 1995 energy perfor-mance regulations were introduced in the nationalbuilding regulations. It consists of a calculationmethod laid down in a national standard calledEPN (energy performance norm) and a limit value,the energy performance coefficient. A lower co-effi-cient stands for a higher energy performing build-ing meaning that the envelope and installationsprovide conditions that the same internal tempera-
tures can be reached with less energy use. Since itsintroduction the EPC was sharpened several times.It started at 1.5 in 1995 and since the 1st ofJanuary 2011 it is now on the level of 0.6. In 2015it will be lowered to 0.4 and in 2020 it shouldreach 0, indicating an nearly zero energy situation.The EPC is a non-dimensional digit. All buildingcharacteristics and installations that affect the ener-gy demand for space and hot water heating, venti-lation and lighting (of communal spaces) are incor-porated in the calculation of the energy index (EI),which is the basis for the EPC. A further explanationof the calculation method can be found in Majcen(2013a).
In Europe the EPBD is the driving force forall member states to develop and strengthen ener-gy performance regulations for new buildings andenergy performance certificates for the existingstock (Mlecnik e.a. 2010; Murphy e.a. 2012). Thegoals are to build net zero energy buildings in 2020and to reach a neutral energy situation in the wholestock by 2050.
Various studies in the residential sectorshowed that the impact of the policies and regula-tions are often not as expected. Theoretical energyuse that is calculated on base of the standards dif-fers largely from the measured actual energy use.
Henk Visscher, Dasa Majcen and Laure Itard
Abstract
The energy saving potential of the building stock is large and considered to be the most cost efficient to contribute to
the CO2 reduction ambitions. Severe governmental policies steering on reducing the energy use seem essential to stim-
ulate and enforce the improvement of the energy performance of buildings with a focus on reducing the heating and
cooling energy demand. In Europe the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is a driving force for member states
to develop and strengthen energy performance regulations for new buildings and energy certificates for the building
stock. The goals are to build net zero energy new buildings in 2020 and to reach a neutral energy situation in the whole
stock by 2050. More and more research projects deliver insight that the expected impact of stricter regulations for newly
built houses is limited and the actual effects of energy savings through housing renovations stay behind the expecta-
tions. Theoretical energy use calculated on base of the design standard for new houses and assessment standards for
Energy Performance Certificates of existing dwellings differ largely from the measured actual energy use. The paper
uses the findings of some Post Occupancy Evaluation research projects. Is the energy saving potential of the housing
stock smaller than expected and should we therefore change the policies?
Keywords: Energy performance certification, Energy performance regulations, Europe, Energy efficiency policies,
Housing Stock.
ENERGY SAVING POLICIES FOR HOUSING BASEDON WRONG ASSUMPTIONS?
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rdThe findings of these studies will be summarized inthe next sections. The approach and results of tworesearch projects in the Netherlands will be pre-sented. The first deals with the effectiveness of ener-gy performance regulations for new dwellings. Thesecond evaluates the relation between the indicat-ed theoretical energy consumption according to theissued energy performance certificates comparedto actual energy use in the Dutch housing stock. Inthe last section thes results are interpreted and con-fronted with the current policies and expectations ofthe improvement of the energy efficiency of the skinand the installations.
Co mpa r i s on be tween e xpec t ed andac tua l energy use
Tigchelaar et al. (2011), calculated a ‘heating fac-tor’ (actual heat demand divided by theoreticaldemand). The average heat factor in a sample of4700 representative dwellings was found to bebelow one, meaning that the expected energy useis overestimated. Cayre et al. (2011) studiedexpected and actual energy use in 923 Frenchdwellings and reached similar conclusions. A simi-lar result was also discovered by Hens (2010), whomonitored the actual use of two types of dwellingsin Belgium (from the 80s and 90s). He found thatthe consumption on average was only half of thecalculated energy use.
On the other hand, in 12 multi-familybuildings in Austria that were renovated, Haas(2000) found that the actual energy consumptionwas significantly higher than the expected energyconsumption. Similar results were obtained byBranco (2004) in a multi-family complex inSwitzerland and in a similar sample in France(Marchio 1989). Based on these results, it seemsthat the theoretical energy use often is to overesti-mated when for average and less energy efficientdwellings and underestimated for new or retrofittedbuildings. This phenomenon can partly beexplained by the so-called rebound effect. Anexplanation for this is that more efficient technolo-gies (e.g. in energy efficient dwellings) lower thetotal costs for the energy and encourage in this wayan increased consumption. A typical example of therebound effect was found to be the type of temper-ature control (Guerra Santin 2010). She found thatdwellings with thermostats use more energy thandwellings without a thermostat.
Sorrell (2009) provides an overview ofmethods for calculating the rebound effect and asummary of available studies. He concludesaccordingly, in OECD countries, that the meanvalue of the long-run direct rebound effect is likely
to be less than 30%. This means that up to 30% ofthe efficiency gained through technical improve-ments of building and appliances are turned intoincreased consumption (higher comfort) followingfrom direct change in user behaviour.
However, the size of the samples in most ofthese studies was relatively small, which sometimesleads to problems when assessing statistical signifi-cance of the results. Moreover, the representative-ness of the sample is not addressed in the studieswhere the main goal is to investigate the sampleand not being representative for the nationaldwelling stock.
Energy use in new ly bu i l t dwe l l ings inthe Ne ther lands
Since the introduction of energy performance regu-lations in 1995 only a few representative statisticalstudies were conducted to assess the effect of theregulations on the actual energy use. The sampleswere of limited size as well. In two of these studiesno statistical correlation was found between theenergy performance coefficient level and the actu-al energy use per dwelling or per square meter. Inthe analysis of the WoON (2009) survey, carriedout on behalf of the Ministry for Housing, Planningand the Environment in 2006 and containing asample of 5000 dwellings which is representativefor the Dutch housing stock, also no correlationwas found between the different levels of the ener-gy performance coefficient and the actual energyuse per dwelling and per square meter. Figure 1shows the data on yearly gas consumption in Dutchdwellings in 2005 per construction year class.
In recent research, Guerra Santin (2009,2010) compared the actual and expected energyconsumptions for 313 Dutch dwellings, built after1996. The method included an analysis of the orig-inal EPC calculations that were submitted to themunicipality as part of the building permit applica-
Figure 1. Yearly gas consumption in m3 in Dutch dwellings
(WoON 2009).
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tion, a detailed questionnaire and some day to daydiary’s. These combined approaches generatedvery detailed and accurate data of the (intended)physical quality of the dwellings and installations,about the actual energy use (from the energy bills)and of the households and their behaviour. Thedwellings were categorised according to their ener-gy performance coefficient. In energy inefficientbuildings with a high energy performance coeffi-cient, actual energy consumption for heating wasalmost twice lower than expected, whereas in build-ings with a low energy efficiency the expected andactual energy use coincided much better. Due tothe relatively small sample size, the differencesbetween the actual heating energy of buildings withdifferent energy performance certificates valueswere insignificant, although the average consump-tion was consistently lower in buildings with lowerenergy performance coefficient. She found thatbuilding characteristics (including heating and ven-tilation installations) were responsible for 19 to 23%of the variation in energy used in the recently builtbuilding stock. Household characteristics and occu-pant behaviour seemed to be responsible for 3 to15% of the total variance. Neither our study nor thestudies found in the literature allow to state thatbuilding characteristics, household characteristicsand occupant behaviour altogether are responsiblefor more than 38% of the variation on energy con-sumption of dwellings built after 1995. Therefore atleast 62% of the variation in energy use was unex-plained by theoretical performance and behaviourand must have other reasons.
There are indications that the explanationfor this remaining part could be related to the factthat buildings practically are constructed differentlythan is described in official documents and toHVAC services operating in very different conditionsthan assumed. A report by Nieman (2007) showedthat in a sample of 154 dwellings, 25% did notmeet the energy performance requirements: theenergy performance was incorrectly calculated.Nevertheless the building permit was issued. In50% of the dwellings, the realization was not inaccordance with the design. These results are sup-ported by earlier findings about inadequate perfor-mance of building control in the Netherlands andother countries (Heijden, JJ van der, e.a. 2008,Meijer F. e.a. 2006, Meijer e.a. 2010, Visscher e.a.2011). Gommans (2008) monitored for 17 yearsthe energy performances of energy efficient build-ings. 40% of solar boilers appeared to functionpoorly. Only 25% of the heat pumps reached theexpected efficiency. This was essentially due to real-ization faults, lack of control and lack of continuousmonitoring. Another study by Elkhuizen e.a. (2006)in office buildings showed that up to 28% of the
energy could be saved by better quality assurance.Taking into account the fact that tightening
the energy performance coefficient did not lead toless energy use for heating and that 62% of thevariation in energy use is still unexplained, it seemslegitimate to be careful about a further tightening ofthe energy performance regulations and to searchif there are more efficient means to really decreasethe energy consumption of newly built dwellings.This could be done by ensuring a correct realizationand monitoring of the calculated performances,putting attention on the knowledge needed by con-tractors and on an effective building controlprocess.
E ne rgy u s e i n th e ex i s t ing ho us i ngs tock
Although new buildings make it easier to applyenergy saving measures, the largest energy savingpotential is in the existing building stock. On aver-age new dwellings add less than 1 per cent per yearto the housing stock. National and local govern-ments have formulated ambitions, programmespolicies and instruments to stimulate the improve-ment of the energy performance of the existingstock. The most important policy tool required bythe EPBD in the European member states is the issu-ing of Energy Performance Certificates. All memberstates have to produce an energy label for a build-ing at the moment it is sold or re-rented. This is notyet current practice everywhere, mostly due to lack-ing enforcement. In the Netherlands however, thewhole social housing stock is labelled. The labelindicates the energy demand for heating and cool-ing.
The present label data base covers a largeshare of the housing stock in the Netherlands. Thisforms a basis to monitor the progress of the reno-vation practices. Besides that it is also useful tostudy the relation of the energy labels with the actu-al energy use.
The progress of renovations and energyupgrading measures stays far behind expectationsand formulated ambitions in 2008 when most ofthe policies, covenants and improvement pro-grammes were set up. The social sector in theNetherlands is still relatively large (35%), wellorganised and relatively rich. A few years ago thesector formulated ambitious programmes, butthese are nowadays scaled down because of sever-al reasons. The economic crises reduced the finan-cial position of the housing associations. The hous-ing market also dramatically slowed down whichalso affected the funding for renovations becausethis largely depends on the sales of property. Also it
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proved to be difficult to get approval of tenants forrenovations that require an increase of the rents(70% of the tenants have to agree). It is hard toassure the saving of energy costs resulting of theimprovement of the dwellings.
The actual energy use is largely influencedby the use and behaviour of the tenants. Some pre-liminary figures demonstrate the difficulty in ‘forc-ing’ reduced energy use by improvements ofdwellings. The dwellings with the worst energy label(G) in practise use far less energy as expected,while the most advanced dwellings (A) use muchmore, probably due to a combination of therebound effect and an increase in comfort level ofthe dwellings (Majcen et al 2013a 2013b) andunderperformance of the buildings and installa-tions. Figure 2 shows the actual and theoretical gasconsumption per dwelling per energy label.
In the home owner sector the issuing ofenergy labels stays yet far behind. Although theywere mandatory, until now there has not been anenforcement system. Energy labels will becomecommon practice and affect the sales price. Stillthere are no obligations foreseen to make improve-ments and higher labels mandatory. It is hard torequire investments and property rights are proba-bly an obstruction. Still there are some ideas for tax-ation measures. Bad labels could be punished withhigher transaction taxes or higher property taxesthan good labels.
Discussion and conclusions
The necessity to drastically reduce fossil fuels seemswithout any doubts. The built environment offers alarge potential of savings. Severe insulation andproduct innovations can reduce the energy
demand for heating and cooling for a large part.The remaining energy demand can be delivered byrenewables like sunlight and heat, district heating,heat pumps etc. The remaining electricity demandfor appliance’s can in the first place be reduced byfurther product innovation and then be provided byphoto voltaic panels. Solutions are available. Thereare no reasons not to apply this in new buildings ata large scale on the short term. However, a suc-cessful transition requires quite much from thedesigners, engineers, installers and builders. Theywill have to use new techniques and improve thequality and accuracy of the work. Solutions have tobe found that are robust. Solutions that are vulner-able for the application in practice and/or for theunpredictable use of the occupants should beavoided. Evaluations of the current practice showthat there is still a large world to win. The buildingregulations should set demanding targets, but whatis surely needed is a better quality control in thewhole process.
Although the potential is higher, the existingstock will be harder to tackle. Experiences show thatit is hard to increase the numbers of severe reno-vations. And even more that the savings in renovat-ed dwellings stay behind expectations because ofrebound effects and increased levels of comfort.There are many barriers: renovations are expen-sive, occupants mostly do not want the trouble andsometimes aesthetics make a change of the facadeunwanted or impossible. On the other hand a largeshare of the current existing stock will have a verylong life span, just because the replacement gradeby new dwellings will simply be too low to provideenough new dwellings. In this perspective, there willalways be a large need for renovations to expandthe life span and this provides possibilities toimprove the energetic quality. The fear however is
Figure 1. Actual and theoretical gas consumption in Dutch dwellings (Majcen et al., 2013a).
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that this ‘normal’ process goes too slowly. Maybethere is still a need for further smart product inno-vations to develop solutions that have a high con-tribution to the reduction of energy demand, arecheap, easy to apply and don’t cause trouble to theoccupants. The fast decrease of the price of PV cellsis promising. The markets need to be stimulated byregulations. It is especially hard to persuade home-owners to invest in energy saving measures. Besidesthat more insight has to be developed in the effectof behaviour on the actual energy use. Possibly thepricing of energy could contribute to more con-sciousness use.
The differences between the actual and theexpected energy use have to be taken seriously andwill have to be adopted better in the policies. As fornow the theoretical expected savings do not matchreality and will lead to disappointments and in theend unfeasible renovation projects. The energy sav-ings will mostly not be enough to cover the invest-ments. When a house is renovated the comfort levelincreases which is mostly not taken into account. Amore holistic approach towards housing renova-tions seems necessary.
REFERENCES
BRANCO, G., LACHAL, B., GALLINELLI, P., WEBER, W. 2004,Predicted versus observed heat consumption of a low energy
multifamily complex in Switzerland based on long-term experi-
mental data, Energy and Buildings, 36:6, 543-555.
CAYRE, E., B. ALLIBE, M. H. LAURENT, D. OSSO 2011, There
are people in this house! How the results of purely technical
analysis of residential energy consumption are misleading for
energy policies, Proceedings of the European Council for anEnergy Efficient Economy (eceee) Summer School, 6–11 June2011, Belambra Presqu'île de Giens, France.
ELkHUIzEN P., SCHOLTEN J.E. AND ROOIAkkERS E. 2006,Quality Control of HVAC services: evaluation of existing instru-
ments and a vision for the future, TNO bouw/Halmos report forSenter Novem.
GOMMANS L.J. 2008, Energy performances of energy effi-
cient buildings, TVVL magazine, September 2008, pp. 18-24.
GUERRA SANTIN O., ITARD L. AND VISSCHER H.J. 2009, The
Effect of Occupancy and Building Characteristics on Energy
Use for Space and Water Heating in Dutch Residential Stock,Energy and Buildings, 41, 1223-1232.
GUERRA SANTIN O. AND ITARD L. 2010, Occupant behav-
iour in residential buildings in the Netherlands: Determinants
and effects on energy consumption for heating, BuildingResearch & Information, 38:3, 318-338
HAAS R., P. BIERMAYR 2000, The rebound effect for space
heating Empirical evidence from Austria, Energy Policy, 28:6,403-410.
HEIJDEN, J.J. VAN DER, VISSCHER, H.J. & MEIJER, F.M. 2008.Problems in enforcing Dutch building regulations. Structuralsurvey, 25:3/4, 319-329
HENS, H., PARIJS, W. AND DEURINCk, M. 2010, Energy con-
sumption for heating and rebound effects, Energy andBuildings, 42:1, 105-110
MAJCEN, D., ITARD, I. AND VISSCHER, H.J. 2013a,Theoretical vs. actual energy consumption of labelled dwellings
in the Netherlands: Discrepancies and policy implications,Energy Policy 54, 125 – 136.
MAJCEN, D., ITARD, L., VISSCHER, H.J. 2013b, Actual and
theoretical gas consumption in Dutch dwellings: What causes
the differences? Energy Policy, 61, 460-471.
MARCHIO, D., A. RABL 1991, Energy –efficient gas heatedhouing in France: Predicted and observed performance,Energy and Buildings, Volume 17, Pages 131 – 139.
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rdMLECNIk, E, VISSCHER, H.J. & HAL, J.D.M. VAN 2010,Barriers and opportunities for labels for highly energy-efficient
houses. Energy policy, 38:8, 4592-4603.
MEIJER, F.M., VISSCHER, H.J., 2006, Deregulation and pri-
vatisation of European building-control systems, Environmentand Planning B: Planning and Design, Volume 33:4,491–501.
MEIJER, F.M., VISSCHER, H.J. & COSTA BRANCO DEOLIVEIRA PEDRO, J.A. 2010 Building control systems of
European Union countries: a comparison of tasks and respon-
sibilities. International journal of law in the built environment,2:1, 45-60.
MURPHY, L.C., MEIJER, F.M. & VISSCHER, H..J 2012. A qual-itative evaluation of policy instruments used to improve energyperformance of existing private dwellings in the Netherlands.Energy Policy, 45, 459-468.
NIEMAN 2007, Final report Housing quality indoor environ-
ment in new built dwellings, Vrom inspectie Regio Oost,Arnhem.
SORRELL, S., DIMITROPOULOS J., SOMMERVILLE M. 2009,Empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect: A review,Energy Policy, Volume 37:4, 1356-1371
TIGCHELAAR, C., DANIëLS, B., MAENkVELD, M., Obligationsin the existing housing stock: Who pays the bill?, Proceedings
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(eceee) Summer School, 6–11 June 2011,BelambraPresqu'île de Giens, France.
VISSCHER, H.J. & MEIJER, F.M. 2011, Energy saving goals
require reform of building regulations and control. In lesRuddock & P Chynoweth (Eds.), COBRA 2011 Programmeand Abstracts RICS Construction and Property Conference328-335. Manchester, University of Salford.
WOON 2009, Woononderzoek Nederland, module energie,VROM.
Author(s):
Henk Visscher, OTB Research for the Built Environment, Faculty ofArchitecture and the Built Envornment,Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BXDelft,The NetherlandsEmail: [email protected]
Dasa Majcen OTB Research for the Built Environment, Faculty ofArchitecture and the Built Envornment,Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BXDelft,The NetherlandsEmail: [email protected]
Laure ItardOTB Research for the Built Environment, Faculty ofArchitecture and the Built Envornment,Delft University of Technology, Jaffalaan 9, 2628 BXDelft,The NetherlandsEmail: [email protected]
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DECISION MAKING FOR FLEXIBILITY IN HOUSING
by Avi Friedman
The Urban International Press
ISBN: 1- 872811 - 11 - 6
Soft Copy, 20cms x 22cms, 136 pages.
Price: 40 USD or 25 GBP
Order Address: [email protected]
BOOK REVIEW
by Dr. Jia Beisi,
Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong.
Although experimental buildings have been built around the world, the difficulties of implementation on a larger
scale prevail. Only a few efforts have been made to organize the knowledge and to formulate the implementation
strategies for the builders and designers. The research on flexible buildings address the technical components, but
the possibility of integration with the current housing market is overlooked. Thus, this book is a significant contribu-
tion in the effort to fill the gap “between theories pertaining to flexibility and the reality of housing market” not only
for North America, as the author explained, but also for the rest of the world. The publication of the book is a sig-
nificant addition to the literature on flexible housing.
The objectives of the book are premised on the understanding that flexibility has not been generally accepted
in North America because of the problems of implementation. It intends to develop a project based decision-mak-
ing model to assist designers and builders in determining the relevant level of flexibility which is best fit to their par-
ticular projects.
The book is informative and serves as a conceptual instrument for the housing decision makers, including
governmental housing organizations, private housing developers and builders, designers, and other promoters who
want to design flexibility projects. It is useful for programmers, housing researchers, and students of architecture and
building management. It can provide inspiration to residents and the general public who are interested in new living
styles as well as in benefits from monetary savings and better living standards during their residency.
Selected keywords: Flexibility, implementation, strategies, economics, alternatives.
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Rev
iew.Book Title: Large Housing Estates: ideas, rise, fall
and recovery.
Authors name: Frank WassenbergPublishers name: IOS Press, Delft UniversityISBN Number: 978–1-61499–231-8Dimensions of the Book: 16.5cms x 24cms.Hard or Soft Cover: Soft coverNumber of Pages: 328Publication Year: 2013Order address: IOS Press,BV, Nieuwe Hemweg, 1013 BGAMSTERDAM, The Netherlands E:Mail: [email protected]
Date for Publication of Review: March 2014Reviewer: Dr. Kagan Gunce, Eastern Mediterranean University, Gazimagusa, Mersin 10, Turkey. [email protected]
Large housing estates: ideas, rise, fall and recovery, which waspublished in 2013, presents a Phd research, which is based onthe problems arising with/on large housing estates. This Phddisseration focuses on large high – rise housing estates. Theauthor has benefitted from using the Amsterdam Bijlmermeerhigh – rise housing district, which is one of the clearest exam-ples, world-wide, of a well-planned housing estate, as a casestudy, whilst discussing the main topic of the book. The book iscomprised of four sections and has twenty - two chapters. Thefour sections of the book are entitled: the introduction, great expectations: glorious estates, the decline and fall: sinkestates and an integrated approach: recovering estates.
The first part of the book which is the introduction (chapters 1 and 2) to the study provides information aboutthe research background, which includes problem definition, research questions, theoretical reflections of the studyand includes general information about the Bijlmermeer high rise estate in respect of it being the leading case studyin this book. The second part of the introduction offers general information about housing estates as in examining anddiscussing the meaning behind or explanation for the construction such housing estates; the reasons, ideas, expecta-tions and historical notions behind housing estates are explained in order to ease the understanding of the researchsubject.
The next section which consists of chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 focuses on the formation or reasons for theconstruction of mass housing estates and describes early housing ideas and how or why booming housing estates andrenovation came into being and where this issue currently stands. The Bijlmermeer estate is portrayed and discussedas a monumental urban development. Based on this, a variety of large housing estates from a number of differentcountries, such as Canada, France, Sweden conducted research into the Bijlmermeer estate and established commonfeatures with it.
The third section of the book which includes chapter 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 explains the ideas and issuesconnected to large housing estates and the factors that affect them by providing case examples and offering answersto the question, e.g how do large housing estates become sink estates. It also elaborates on the stigmatization of largehousing estates and presents a framework for possible internal and image renewal strategies.The fourth and final section of the book discusses the issue of ‘recovering estates’ through the use of integratedapproaches. The structural and integrated approaches used in the Bijlmermeer estate experience are again elaborat-ed and discussed here. A blow by blow account of the Urban Renewal process in the Bijlmermeer estate is also pro-vided. In this section, how and why of the applied approaches and the altered strategies in respect of the estates arehighlighted. The approaches are illustrated and explained using supporting drawings / illustrations and charts. Thissection also refers to urban renewal policies and makes some other propositions.Overall, therefore, the questions which were the main research questions of the study is why has the developments ofmany large housing estates proved to be so problematic, and what is being done, and what else can be done to dealwith these issues and transform them into successes, are answered.
This book may be useful to anybody who wishes to know more about residential architecture. However, itcould also be suggested as essential reading for academic architects and especially for those urban planners who dealwith architectural discourse. Whilst the book is well illustrated, the visual documents, figures and graphics within thebook could be improved in order to provide a better impression of the content and quality of the text.
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