In the Green Catalogue sheets for each technology there is a presentation of performance indicators with 4 different suggested performance requirements which are 1: normal standard, 2: improved standard (which could be called Energy+ and in most cases will be equal to the required demands by January 2006 when the EU-building directive for energy comes into force). Then there is 3: a further improved standard (which could be called Energy++, (and which e.g. could be equal to the expected increased energy demands by year 2011 which are required by the EU energy directive for buildings). And 4: the best available technology or BAT. Besides there are suggestions for “check procedures concerning the quality of the used technologies”.
At the same time it is suggested to use the same approach with Reference, Energy+, Energy++ and BAT quality for the total building project. Here you can use the developed A+B labelling system from Denmark for inspiration, (where the energy use for housing for heating and hot water is 50 and 70 kWh pr m² per year respectively for labels A and B compared to a reference energy use of 110 kWh per m², (calculated value). In Denmark an Energy+ standard would mean approximately 80 kWh/m², year and Energy++ would be 55 kWh/m², year.
(See under Green Quality Building in the GREEN Catalogue web site)
Energy and economic calculations concerning different qualities can be calculated by the Ascot calculation program from Cenergia (can be downloaded from Cenergia’s web site www.cenergia.dk)
(See under Greenbuild System/Tools in the GREEN Catalogue web site)
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In relation to practical building projects it is possible to suggest to the builder e.g. to utilise an “Energy+ Standard” for a certain number of technologies and combine this with the suggested check procedures, or as a minimum you can use the normal standard but introduce good check procedures as something new (which is seldom used in practice which means that actual energy use will often be much higher than the calculated). Another possibility can be to use an Energy+, or normal, standard for the total building project, e.g. like before mentioned and combine it with certain minimum demands for some of the BAT technologies including use of quality check procedures.
Finally it can be a good option to introduce wanted qualities in a system like the enclosed Green Build questionnaire which can also be used like an energy and environmental point system which in a swift way identifies the quality of a building project.
(See under Greenbuild System/Tools in the GREEN Catalogue web site)
In the greencatalogue.com web site you can find GREEN Catalogue sheets for all 10 partner countries as well as proposed European GREEN Catalogue sheets. Besides there is a link to all the here mentioned systems.
In e.g. Denmark there is prepared new energy demands in the building regulations which will reduce the energy consumption in housing for heating and domestic hot water by 25-30 %. At the same time 2 new low energy standards, standard 1 and standard 2, is proposed with a further reduction of 50% and 25 % respectively.
At present preparations are made to make a campaign to make municipalities to choose the new low energy standard 2 as a demand and to couple this with use of GREEN Catalogue performance recommendations.
Under “Practical Implementation” in the GREEN Catalogue website you can find examples on how the GREEN Catalogue has been introduced in actual building projects in the partner countries.
