TIMEPAC Academy

The primary goal of the assessment of the energy performance of buildings is to provide essential insights into energy consumption, support the extensive energy renovation of buildings, and facilitate informed and cost-effective decisions. Furthermore, Re-commissioning (Re-Co) refers to the activities involved in fine-tuning building systems to ensure optimal performance and this process addresses issues that arise over a building's lifespan, such as ageing equipment or changes in how spaces are used by occupants, and focuses on enhancing overall building performance by optimizing the operation of systems together.

The recently approved recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) underscores the critical importance of on-site visits in producing accurate and reliable Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). In this free course, participants will learn firsthand how to integrate various activities (EPC generation, energy auditing, and Re-Co) and provide solid recommendations for improving the energy performance of buildings. Additionally, the course will delve into techniques for monitoring and comparing actual versus expected building performance, ensuring participants gain practical experience and insights into the entire process. This practical approach guarantees that participants not only learn theoretical concepts but also understand how to effectively apply them in real-world scenarios.

This course will also include practical insights and experiences aligned with SRI auditing and the TIMEPAC Code of Conduct for Smart Readiness and Sustainability Rating, ensuring that participants will receive actionable knowledge and skills.

The recently approved recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) outlines a pathway to achieve a decarbonized building stock by 2050, an ambitious and necessary goal to mitigate climate change. This directive is a key instrument of the Renovation Wave strategy to increase the annual renovation rate of buildings in the EU countries.

According to the new EPBD, each Member State shall establish a national renovation plan to ensure the renovation of the stock of residential and non-residential buildings. This will first require knowing the status of the existing buildings based on available data. In this regard, the content of EPC databases, supplemented by other data sources such as building inspections, renovation passports, or information on renewable energy production, plays a crucial role in assessing the condition of buildings and determining the necessary measures for improvement.

In this course, we will explore the potential of utilizing the information gathered in the EPC database managed by ICAEN in Catalonia to create large-scale building renovation plans. We will introduce participants to the procedures developed in the TIMEPAC project to analyse the content of this database, identifying unreliable data and grouping buildings according to their characteristics, climatic zone, use and year of construction, in order to create representative archetypes of the building stock. Additionally, we will delve into the development of renovation plans that integrate EPC data with other socioeconomic data and urban data.

The course is especially aimed at staff of public administrations involved with the renovation of the building stock, as well as energy consultants and other experts dealing with building assessment and certification.

Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) currently play a significant role in the European Union's efforts to enhance building energy efficiency, which aligns with broader climate-neutrality and sustainability goals. Despite their wide usage, the implementation of EPCs across EU member states has been varied and inconsistent. This variation affects the scope, information quality, comparability, and user-friendliness of EPCs, limiting their acceptance by users and hindering market penetration.

This course is designed to uncover the practical synergies among energy performance certification, technical building system inspections, and energy auditing. Our aim is to optimize the process of EPC generation, including their creation from Building Information Modeling (BIM) models. Emphasizing hands-on experience, we will navigate through effective strategies for data collection and validation, ensuring both precision and reliability. Starting from office-based analysis of architectural drawings, inspection reports, and energy audit reports, we will extend our exploration to on-site assessments to capture details about the renovation progress, building elements, construction materials, and metering infrastructure. Further, we will discuss how to gather and use additional data on HVAC systems, lighting, appliances, occupancy, and space utilization to accurately evaluate building energy performance.

This course will also include practical insights and experiences aligned with the SRI auditing and TIMEPAC Code of Conduct for Smart Readiness and Sustainability Rating, ensuring participants leave with actionable knowledge and skills.

The recently adopted revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) recommends the use of digital modelling and simulation tools in all phases of building design, construction and renovation to improve the energy performance of buildings. These technologies are particularly suitable for creating building renovation passports and digital logbooks, while facilitating the incorporation of the Smart Readiness Indicator and the contribution of buildings to global warming throughout their life cycle. Their use allows for a more comprehensive assessment over time and facilitates the transition from one-off certification to continuous assessment of energy performance.

This course serves as an introduction to methods and tools for building performance assessment and building renovation. It begins by outlining the recently approved Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) and then explores the application of BIM technology in generating Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) during the renovation process. The workflow will adhere to the guidelines from TIMEPAC regarding the Building Renovation Passport, considering energy consumption, economic, and environmental factors. Exercises will focus on both public and residential buildings.

The mission of this training is to empower general building experts and professionals to properly extract and visualize EPC data and to utilize that data for the creation of innovative energy services. After two days of training each participant will be receive training materials related to the building information modelling (BIM), dynamic simulation of energy demand, extraction of data from various sources, connecting EPC with real consumption data and monitoring and verification of energy savings will be provided. 

Special focus of planned exercises will be related with the transformation of EPC data into a Renovation Passport and the exploitation of the EPC data for the preparation of deep energy renovation projects and projects based on innovative energy services to foster deep energy renovation programs.

The primary goal of the energy performance assessment of buildings is to provide essential insights into energy consumption, support the extensive energy renovation of buildings, and facilitate informed and cost-effective decisions. Re-commissioning (Re-Co) refers to the activities involved in fine-tuning building systems to ensure optimal performance. This process addresses issues that arise over a building's lifespan, such as aging equipment or changes in how spaces are used by occupants, and focuses on enhancing overall building performance by optimizing the operation of systems together.

The recently approved recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) underscores the critical importance of on-site visits in producing accurate and reliable Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs). In this course, participants will learn firsthand how to integrate various activities (EPC generation, energy auditing, and Re-Co) and provide solid recommendations for improving the energy performance of buildings. We will explore the Re-Co process in detail, which includes conducting a rapid energy audit and adjusting system operating parameters to boost building performance. Although this may result in some additional costs, the long-term benefits for property owners and occupants can be substantial. Additionally, the course will delve into techniques for monitoring and comparing actual versus expected building performance, ensuring participants gain practical experience and insights into the entire process. This practical approach guarantees that participants not only learn theoretical concepts but also understand how to effectively apply them in real-world scenarios.

The Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) database, along with other data sources, serves as a valuable tool for understanding the energy efficiency of existing buildings, crucial for developing effective energy retrofit strategies and implementing the EU targets. The TIMEPAC project has devised a methodology leveraging EPC information to identify building archetypes, aiding in urban-scale energy modelling. In addition, to effectively reach the forthcoming decarbonisation target, new indicators and methods for holistic building performance assessment are foreseen in the TIMEPAC enhanced EPC, in line with the updating of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). To facilitate effective interventions at the building level while also evaluating their broader impact at the building stock level, the renovation passport, a product of the EPBD's 2018 update, could be a pivotal instrument. 

In this context, the training aims at spreading the TIMEPAC approach to exploit EPCs for local, regional and national energy planning by: (i) extracting and processing EPC data, and generating representative buildings (archetypes) for predicting the building energy demand at different scales; (ii) calculating and presenting a new set of indicators, such as the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI), parameters related to occupant comfort, costs, environment and energy; (iii) applying the methodology to create the Renovation Passport in such a way to set up an effective building renovation roadmap moving from the building to the building stock scale.

The recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) was adopted by Member States on 12 April 2024. The approaches presented in this seminar are based on the EU project TIMEPAC, which developed proposals and tools for the implementation of the recast EPBD. The TIMEPAC Academy organised webinars in English on data, tools, indicators, building renovation and energy efficiency in March 2024, which can be accessed here: https://academy.timepac.eu/. This first face-to-face event in German provides a condensed overview of the content, opportunities and upcoming changes, with a focus on single-building retrofits and large-scale renovations. The recast EPBD 2024 introduces additional requirements, but also offers freedom of implementation and therefore the opportunity to act efficiently and effectively. This seminar will present and discuss the changes with a focus on renovation and possible new implementations based on the results of the TIMEPAC project. The seminar will help you to prepare for the upcoming implementation of the EPBD in Austria, to gain a competitive advantage and to anticipate the reactions of the industry.

Topics to be covered include the Energy Performance Certificate compared to the Renovation Passport, data repositories, data availability and reliability, planning and progress reporting, and the further development of the long-term renovation strategy in Austria. The course is specifically aimed at companies in the construction and real estate sector, universities, energy and building professionals and the public sector.