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Hong Kong has experienced an average annual growth in final energy consumption of 4.7 per cent over the last ten years. An initiative being undertaken by a small number of government and commercial organisations is to limit their own consumption of electricity through performance contracting. Performance contracting is essentially a partnering process, where a client organisation partners with an energy management firm to identify and achieve energy savings for the client organisation. The research undertaken for this project has identified a number of factors that are considered to affect the success of performance contracting in Hong Kong. In a survey of practitioners, who have experience of performance contracting, some of the key benefits of this approach identified include the fact that there are substantial energy cost savings to be made. These savings are guaranteed by the partnering energy saving company and there are overall improved operational and plant efficiency gains. Key requirements for the success of such schemes include the setting‐up of an agreed energy baseline against which to measure results and human factors such as commitment to the enterprise at all levels of the organisation and trust between the co‐operating organisations. The paper expands the discussion on the benefits, obstacles and necessary ingredients for performance contracting that are likely to be applicable not just to Hong Kong but to the successful implementation of any such scheme.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the adoption process of high performance building technologies, including alternative wall systems, in hot‐humid climates. Challenges faced by homebuilders adopting high performance building technologies, and resulting energy performance are discussed.

The paper is a case study of four homebuilders using high performance building technologies, including advanced framing, panelised and modular. For each homebuilder, a baseline and a demonstration house were evaluated for energy performance and technology adoption. Homebuilders were interviewed to identify implementation challenges and barriers faced during the construction process.

The advanced framing, modular and panelised houses used 50 percent, 42 percent, and 35 percent less energy when compared to the traditional stick‐built. Further, the modular appeared to have the greatest opportunity to boost performance for least cost. Participating builders identified cost as the top constraint to a wide adoption of high performance criteria, followed by a slow learning curve and the lack of proper marketing channels to transition from construction to sale.

Several limitations of the research restrict generalisation of findings: results are based on a small sample of homebuilders; and results reflect energy performance in a hot and humid climate. It is likely that relative energy usage will change as the size, scope, and design complexity of the common element changes.

Findings from this study will contribute to a better understanding of the usability of high performance technologies and ease the transition towards implementing high performance criteria into every builder company's culture.

The purpose of this study is to quantify the energy heating performance of apartment buildings in Kosovo built after 2003 and compare it against the energy heating performance of buildings in member states of EU and selected European countries.

This paper takes a case study approach focussed on the assessment of the heating energy performance of the building. This approach facilitated a detailed calculation of the selected materials’ energy performance used in a representative building structure in Kosovo comparing with passive buildings standard and energy heating performance of buildings in member states of EU and selected European countries.

Results of quantitative research find that the energy heating performance of apartment buildings in Kosovo built after 2003 is far higher than that of passive buildings standard and is better than the average annual energy heating performance of apartment buildings in member states of the EU and selected European countries.

The research provides new knowledge regarding energy heating performance in new residential buildings in Kosovo and compares the findings with earlier research and energy consumption in other selected European countries. The research provides great benefits for researchers and practitioners working in the field of energy management as it compares the energy performance of residential buildings across Europe.

This paper provides a perspective on investigating the energy performance of a building structure of a residential apartment building in Prishtina, Kosovo. By unveiling the level of energy consumption of a residential apartment building in Kosovo representative of the new construction period can help the facility managers to acknowledge the standards they must achieve to refurbish the old building stock to achieve at least the same standard as the buildings in the new construction period.

Earlier studies assume that historical dwellings and post-war dwellings in particular, are less sustainable than modern dwellings, justifying its demolition. Over time, historical buildings have been transformed and their energy performance improved. However, there is little known on the energy performance of historical dwellings. The purpose of this paper is to unveil the role of historical dwellings and its transformations in improving urban sustainability.

In this research, historical dwellings (built=1970) are distinguished in listed and unlisted dwellings. Three cities were selected as case study – Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam – and three post-war neighborhoods – New-West, Mariahoeve and Ommoord. This research uses the difference in energy label (original vs current performance) to discuss the transformations of dwellings: comparing modern and historical; post-war and other historical; and listed and unlisted dwellings.

Findings reveal that historical and post-war dwellings have great potentials to raise the energy performance e.g. by applying after insulation and renewable energy sources. Furthermore, The Hague and its post-war neighborhood Mariahoeve have a considerably lower energy performance. Further research could relate the raising of energy performance to the cultural significance of such dwellings, to better discuss the role of attributes and their transformation to raising energy performance.

This paper addresses the knowledge gap of the current energy performance of historical dwellings, by presenting and discussing its role in improving urban sustainability.

The purpose of this study is to identify an objective energy performance assessment method in Korea, and to build a building information modelling (BIM) based system that can assess the energy performance of buildings.

The energy performance assessment methods currently used in Korea were first identified via a literature review. A system was then implemented to solve the problem of objectivity. The system was implemented through a data‐based building information model, instead of the existing method of documented two‐dimensional (2D) CAD. In addition, Revit Architecture (a BIM tool), MS Access, and Visual Basic (VB) were used to implement the system. To verify the system's efficiency, it was compared to the existing method by applying both to an actual case (a school facility).

This study found that the issue of subjectivity in the Korean energy performance assessment method may be resolved with a data‐based BIM.

This study presented the BIM‐EPAS to reduce errors and the time needed to conduct an energy performance assessment. In order to follow a realistic approach, the BIM‐EPAS was applied to an actual assessment case, thereby verifying the system's applicability.

Building energy efficiency retrofit (BEER) not only provides excellent opportunities to reduce overall energy consumption of buildings in a city but also encourages environmental protection, the rational use of resources, and occupants' healthcare, which all contribute towards the sustainability of existing buildings. However, there is a lack of effective performance indicators to measure the sustainability of BEER projects. The aim of this paper is to formulate a list of key performance indicators (KPI) for the sustainability assessment of BEER in hotel buildings.

First, a literature review and in‐depth interviews with industry experts and academic researchers were conducted, which filtered the performance indicators for assessing sustainability. Second, a questionnaire survey was conducted to collect data from various groups of experts to analyze the significance of the selected performance indicators. Finally, a model based on fuzzy set theory was designed to identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) for the sustainability of BEER.

Eight KPIs were identified based on fuzzy set theory in this study. They are: quality performance, hotel energy management, cost performance, project profitability, energy consumption and resources saving, health and safety, stakeholder satisfaction, and innovation and improvement.

The KPIs of sustainability of BEER identified for hotel buildings in China in this study can be useful reference for other similar research. However, with the different requirements for building types and building ownerships, the KPIs of sustainability of BEER for different buildings may be variable. The findings in this study may not be directly relevant to other types of building.

Key performance indicators for the sustainability assessment of BEER in hotel buildings in China are identified and analyzed in this study. The KPIs can help decision‐makers to identify an optimal solution between alternatives, which presents the maximum sustainability performance.

This study aims to test whether energy performance effects single-family home sale prices. It also examines whether recommendations for supposedly cost-effective energy efficiency measures, by intervention category (construction, installation or operation/control technical measures), are perceived as untapped potential – a real option – that effects sale prices.

The energy performance measurement and dummy variables for three categories of improvement recommendations are included as explanatory variables in a hedonic regression analysis using transaction data and energy performance certificates data for 1,073 observations.

Results indicate that better energy performance effects selling prices positively. Energy efficiency recommendations seem to have an impact on sale price; home buyers seem to require a larger “discount” for more complex types of measures.

The sample only includes houses in the Stockholm; so-called sustainable buildings have not been specifically studied; and the heating source has not been accounted for.

The EU energy performance certificates provide new information and measure energy performance more exactly than many earlier (proxy) variables. This is one of the first studies to test the effect of this information, and the first one using Swedish data.

Global warming and climate change is one of the biggest issues facing humanity in this century; its effects are felt on the highest peaks of Mount Everest to the low-lying islands in the India Ocean. This century marked the highest amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted, breaking records of the past 650,000 years, and we have pushed the climate to “a point of no return”. Much of the climate contribution has been linked to humanity’s thirst for higher living standards and lifestyle, which has led to higher consumerism, depletion of earth’s resources, production of massive waste and carbon emissions. Fast forward from the sustainability agenda of Brundtland set in 1987 and the increasing demand for energy consumption to cater for the current global inhabitants, many “green” efforts have been taken by the building industry to reduce the overall environmental impact. This purpose of this study is to compare energy performance of a conventional office building with a green certified building.

This paper tries to bridge the performance gap by comparing measured operational energy consumption and carbon emission of Green Building Index (GBI)-certified office buildings in Kuala Lumpur, to determine whether “green buildings” are performing as intended in reducing their environmental impact.

This paper highlighted and compared operational energy consumption and carbon emissions of a GBI-certified office with a conventional office building in Malaysia. The paper also discusses the performance gap issue and its common causes, and aims to compare predicted energy and operational energy performance of buildings.

Initiatives such as “green” or “sustainable” design have been at the forefront of architecture, while green assessment tools have been used to predict the energy performance of a building during its operational phase. There is still a significant performance gap between predicted or simulated energy measurements to actual operational energy consumption. The need to measure actual performance of these so-called “green buildings” is important to investigate if there is a performance gap and whether these buildings can perform better than conventional buildings. Understanding why the performance gap occurs is a step in reducing actual and predicted energy performance in buildings.

The energy saving potential of the building stock is large and considered to be the most cost efficient to contribute to the CO2 reduction ambitions. Severe governmental policies steering on reducing the energy use seem essential to stimulate and enforce the improvement of the energy performance of buildings with a focus on reducing the heating and cooling energy demand. In Europe the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is a driving force for member states to develop and strengthen energy performance regulations for new buildings and energy certificates for the building stock. The goals are to build net zero energy new buildings in 2020 and to reach a neutral energy situation in the whole stock by 2050. More and more research projects deliver insight that the expected impact of stricter regulations for newly built houses is limited and the actual effects of energy savings through housing renovations stay behind the expectations. Theoretical energy use calculated on base of the design standard for new houses and assessment standards for Energy Performance Certificates of existing dwellings differ largely from the measured actual energy use. The paper uses the findings of some Post Occupancy Evaluation research projects. Is the energy saving potential of the housing stock smaller than expected and should we therefore change the policies?