Subsidy allocation for residential building energy retrofit: A perspective of families' incomes

High household end-user services demand of high-income families results in higher energy consumption compared with low-income families, indicating high-income families may save more energy from similar building energy retrofitting (BER) strategies. Therefore, current BER subsidy policies, which consider technique indicators and ignore...

A Parametric Modelling Approach for Energy Retrofitting Heritage Buildings: The Case of Amsterdam City Centre

The city of Amsterdam has ambitious goals to achieve a 95% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 and to phase out natural gas by 2040. Disconnecting the building stock from natural gas requires well-ventilated and well-insulated buildings and a switch to renewable energy sources, making optimal use of heat pumps and sustainable heating solutions...

Facades-as-a-Service: Systemic managerial, financial, and governance innovation to enable a circular economy for buildings. Lessons learnt from a full-scale pilot project in the Netherlands

Introduction: The challenge of the energy transition in the built environment has, in recent years, been exacerbated by rising awareness of the material resource limitations we face on the path towards sustainable development. In this context the concepts of Circular Economy (CE) and Product-Service Systems (PSS) have emerged as potentially...

Planning home energy retrofit in a social environment: The role of perceived descriptive and injunctive social norms

In the built environment, improving the energy efficiency of existing building stock through retrofitting is the top pillar to mitigate climate change. Despite the efforts made by local authorities to provide technical and financial supports, the home energy retrofit rate remains low. This study aims to improve the understanding of how...

Boosting long-term-oriented thinking to promote home energy retrofit: A choice experiment

In the built environment sector, enhancing energy efficiency through energy retrofitting is a key strategy to mitigate climate change. Despite the efforts made by local municipalities to offer technical and financial support, the rate of home energy retrofit remains low. The decision to undertake home energy retrofit is complex for homeowners....

Improving the Efficiency of District Heating and Cooling Using a Geothermal Technology: Underground Thermal Energy Storage (UTES)

For efficient operation of heating and cooling grids, underground thermal energy storage (UTES) can be a key element. This is due to its ability to seasonally store heat or cold addressing the large mismatch between supply and demand. This technology is already available and there are many operational examples, both within and outside a...

Application of cumulative prospect theory in understanding energy retrofit decision: A study of homeowners in the Netherlands

Retrofitting residential buildings can help mitigate the effects of climate change. Cognitive biases are systematic deviations from rationality in decision making and can lead to inaction, delay, and uncertain decisions. Understanding the cognitive biases involved in residential renovation decisions and developing interventions to overcome...

Building energy retrofit-as-a-service: a Total Value of Ownership assessment methodology to support whole life-cycle building circularity and decarbonisation: Construction Management and Economics

The regulatory drive to accelerate the clean energy and circular economy transitions in the European building stock is currently failing to overcome systemic implementation barriers. These barriers include high initial investment costs, misaligned financial incentives among stakeholders, and the relatively low cost of less sustainable energy and...

Municipal governance and energy retrofitting of owner-occupied homes in the Netherlands

The building sector is responsible for more than one-third of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The Netherlands has set an ambitious target to reduce GHG emissions by 95% by 2050 compared to the 1990 baseline. Several factors, such as low retrofitting rates, lead to uncertainties in achieving these targets. In the residential sector, the...

Naturally Tokyo: found in translation?: A case study of Dutch Earth, Wind, and Fire system integration & optimization in an office building in Tokyo

Earth, Wind, and Fire (EWF) is a natural ventilation system developed by Dr Ben Bronsema for office buildings in the Western European climate. Powered by nature: ground temperature & gravity for cooling, wind for energy generation & ventilation, and sun for the heat and natural draft, this system claims not only to use little energy but...

Transaction Cost and Agency Perspectives on Eco-Certification of Existing Buildings: A Study of Hong Kong

Eco-certification schemes are usually launched with various incentives provided by local governments to facilitate green building development and building energy retrofits. A number of barriers to building energy retrofitting have been identified in previous literature, while the barriers to the eco-certification of existing buildings are under...

Accelerating Building Energy Retrofitting with BIM-Enabled BREEAM-NL Assessment

The Paris Agreement requires building retrofitting practices to be more efficient and effective. However, the current practice for building energy retrofitting is lacking behind, and one reason for that is the time-consuming process of energy credit evaluation. Energy performance assessment such as BREEAM-NL in the Netherlands could apply a more...

How information stimulates homeowners’ cooperation in residential building energy retrofits in China

The process of residential energy retrofitting needs to be advanced, especially in the hot summer and cold winter (HSCW) zone of China. Good cooperation from homeowners is the key to the smooth project implementation. Some studies have identified four categories of information as important factors affecting homeowners' decision-making in...

Exploring key risks of energy retrofit of residential buildings in China with transaction cost considerations

Energy retrofit of residential buildings is an approach to reduce worldwide energy consumption. Residential energy retrofitting in China mostly focuses on multi-owner residential buildings with composite ownership that dozens of private homeowners own their apartment and jointly own the common parts of a building. The implementation of...

Developing a locally balanced energy system for an existing neighbourhood, using the ‘Smart Urban Isle’ approach

This paper describes a step-by-step approach for generating various energy concepts for neighbourhoods, based on local renewable resources. The approach is developed within the European research project ‘Smart Urban Isle’ (SUI). While much literature is focussed on comparison or optimization of predefined configurations, the SUI approach adds...

Stakeholders’ Risk Perception: A Perspective for Proactive Risk Management in Residential Building Energy Retrofits in China

The implementation of energy retrofit of residential buildings faces many risks around the world, especially in China, leading to low retrofit progress. Stakeholders’ proactive risk management is the key to the smooth implementation of retrofit projects but is normally affected by risk perception. Perceived risks instead of real risks are the...

Serious games as instrument to support energy retrofitting: Lessons from the Go2Zero City-zen game

This paper presents the serious multi-player tabletop game GO2Zero and explores how such games may contribute to overcoming barriers to local energy retrofitting. The game lets actors involved in local energy retrofitting, experience the multi-actor decision-making context. In half a day, about twenty participants play a role. Roles defined are:...