The session will introduce upcoming changes in the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), which are pivotal for the decarbonization goals in building sector, a major emitter of greenhouse gases. To achieve this, fostering bottom-up processes is essential, expanding the involvement EU regions and cities in emission reduction. The Covenant of Mayors, a longstanding initiative at the EU level, exemplifies this commitment. In this context, we will explore how enhanced Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) can aid local authorities in implementing sustainable energy plans, using practical examples.

EPC databases can be used to analyse the condition of the building stock at various scales, including district, region, and country. However, existing databases still have limitations that hinder their exploitation for evaluating building performance comprehensively, considering factors such as the renovation of buildings over time and aspects beyond energy performance. This session will present the results of the audit undertaken on ICAEN’s database and showcase the potential offered by its open data portal to carry out building assessments in combination with other data.

The session will highlight the importance of having accurate and reliable EPC data for assessing the performance of the building stock, in a comprehensive way. Various quality assessment techniques that can be employed to evaluate the accuracy of EPC databases will be presented, including the application of rules for EPC data quality assessment such as efficiency of active systems, ventilation rate, and energy consumption consistency. Examples illustrating how EPC data quality assessment can be utilized in practice will be showcased.

This session will centre on the comprehensive analysis of urban areas to identify buildings suitable for a large-scale renovation programme, considering various factors like building characteristics (such as the year of construction and typology), urban infrastructure (including the availability of amenities and transportation), and socioeconomic factors (such as income levels and population density). The Retabit platform will be introduced as an example of a data-driven multidimensional analysis tool for evaluating the building stock.

One of the objectives for local, regional, and national authorities engaged in large-scale building rehabilitation is to prioritize intervention areas, considering multiple factors. Access to energy-related data from various domains can aid in developing tools for this purpose. In this session, we will present tools for public authorities to assess the energy performance of the building stock based on the Retabit project, taking into account building status, urban context, and socioeconomic conditions