CCEM Retrofit

Advanced Low Energy Renovation of Buildings

  
The project aims to have a large impact for building refurbishment. The concept of a 2000-Watt-Society as proposed by the ETH-domain cannot be achieved by addressing new buildings only. The Swiss energy consumption and environmental load is (and will be in future) dominated by the existing building stock. For approaching the goals of the 2000-Watt-Society it is indispensable that the existing building stock reaches the standard of Minergie- or even Minergie-P housing.

Currently, most ongoing building renovations address isolated building components, such as roofs, façades or heating systems. This often results in inefficient and in the end expensive solutions, without an appropriate long term energy reduction. Optimal results can not be achieved by single renovation measures and new problems could arise, including local condensation or overheating.

The projects aims therefore to develop in collaboration with leading industry partners economically and technically attractive refurbishment packages which increase the energy efficiency of existing building by a factor 5 to 10. During the last few years, standardisation of components and an increasing level of prefabrication have substantially enhanced the quality and comfort of new buildings, e.g. low energy and passive houses. These successful concepts and methods should now be translated to new standard solutions for building renewal.

The project focuses on typical apartment blocks representing approximately 40 % of the European dwelling stock. It concentrates on:

  • Minimising the primary energy consumption (in the range of 30-50 kWh/(m2·year) for heating, cooling and hot water, per gross floor area),
  • Optimising the integration of solar energy use,
  • Increasing living comfort by better space use,
  • Assuring good thermal and acoustical comfort, good indoor air quality and daylighting conditions, and
  • Assuring a fast, high quality and cost-effective construction process.

The project is building up a strong collaboration between various ETH-Institutions, the National Buildings and Renewable Energies Network of Technology (brenet) and important Swiss industry partners. It has a direct link to the international refurbishment activities of the IEA Energy Conservation in Buildings and Community Systems Program Annex 50 «Prefabricated Systems for Low Energy Renovation of Residential Buildings»

Partners
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Science and Technology Research (Empa), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology - Centre for Energy Policy and Economics (ETH-CEPE), EPF Lausanne - Laboratoire energie solaire (EPFL LESO-PB), University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW), University of Applied Science of Central Switzerland (HS Lucerne), Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), University of Berne, 17 Swiss Industry Partners 

Funding
Competence Centre for Energy and Mobility (CCEM), Swiss Federal Office of Energy (BFE), Swiss Confederation's Innovation Promotion Agency (CTI), Swiss National Research Foundation (SNF), City of Zurich (AHB)

Contact
 mark.zimmermann@empa.ch, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa)