Minergie-Eco

Evaluation of the ecological impacts of buildings

The European Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) requests that the assessment of the energy performance of a building include not only heating, but also cooling, ventilation, hot water and lighting.

The amount of energy used for constructing low energy buildings is of the same order of magnitude as the energy used for heating, cooling hot water, ventilation and lighting during the building lifetime. In addition, the energy savings should not be made to the expense of the indoor environment quality.

Therefore, the evaluation of the building energy performance should take all these issues into account. The aim of this project was to provide a methodology and a tool for such an evaluation. The calculation of the energy use is based on well accepted methods such as the most recent European Standards for energy used by buildings and published methods fort he building energy. Some criteria related to environmental impact such as CO2 production are also provided. The methodology also includes the evaluation of the indoor environment quality.

The results of this project is a handbook describing the method, and a computer tool based on LESOSAI for the evaluation. This tool provides the data required for obtaining the EPBD certificate and the Swiss EcoBau Label.

Minergie Website

Eco+ Module

Coordination

INTEP   Integrale Planung GmbH, Dufourstrasse 105, CH – 8008 Zürich

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