Commissioning for nearly zero-energy building projects

Abstract

Purpose

This article aims to reveal the benefits and opportunities that commissioning procedure has to offer for nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) projects. Another goal is to sculpture the commissioning process and, especially, commissioning consultant’s tasks to fit nZEB projects.

Design/methodology/approach

The idea was to incorporate the literature from two fields: commissioning and nZEB, and find out if commissioning would fit nZEB projects. Challenges offered by nZEB technology were pointed out and the solutions offered to these problems by commissioning were established. Expert interviews were used to test the findings.

Findings

Commissioning was found valuable for complex nZEB projects and even worthwhile investing to in simple nZEB projects. Quality assurance is a huge task when the change to nZEB construction happens in 2020 and commissioning can be a valuable tool to prevent large-scale quality problems. A number of additions were made to the example commissioning process used in Finland today.

Originality/value

This article gives evidence for economical usability of commissioning procedure in nZEB projects and reason to start investigating the possibility to attach commissioning as a mandatory procedure to all nZEB projects.

Citation

Kantola, M. and Saari, A. (2014), "Commissioning for nearly zero-energy building projects", Construction Innovation, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 370-382. https://doi.org/10.1108/CI-06-2013-0031