1. Information, Co-operation & Support
Besides financial and legal issues, the complexity and the associated lack of information and support for building owners and other stakeholders is a big barrier for building retrofit.
Therefore, RENOWAVE addresses Information and support for local politicians, administrations and building owners through a local policy analysis and development of information and facilitation programs at local (municipality) level. As a complement, integrated support tools for the assessment and the implementation of coherent and successful retrofit strategies will be developed, tested and assessed.
1.1 Recommendations for Action and Participative Model Process
Issue/Challenge
Municipalities lack a direct political mandate to promote energy-efficient renovations in private properties. Additionally, they often lack the financial resources and legal authority to enforce such measures. However, there are compelling reasons for municipalities to encourage energy-efficient renovations in private properties, and numerous strategies can be employed beyond financial incentives and legal mandates.
Description
In light of the situation described above, this sub-project aims to gather insights on the following questions:
- What motivates municipalities to address the issue?
- What options do municipalities have to promote energy-efficient renovations in private properties?
- How can municipalities adopt a participatory approach?
The knowledge gained will be used to develop guidelines for the benefit of municipalities and other stakeholders, such as the cantons.
1.2 Toolkit for municipalities promoting the implementation of proactive measures to encourage energy-efficient renovation of private properties
Issue/Challenge
Municipalities face the challenge of ambitious political climate goals which cannot be achieved if private property owners do not reduce the energy consumption and CO2-emissions of the buildings on the municipal territory.
Description
The toolkit provides Swiss municipalities with tools for the analysis, definition, and execution of their strategy regarding the energy-efficient renovation of the private building park on the municipal territory. Each tool guides the municipality and shows how it can support building owners to strive for an ambitious goal and to accompany them in their projects until the end of renovation.
1.3 Toolkit of support and coaching tools for refurbishment strategies to encourage energy-efficient retrofit of private properties
Issue/Challenge
In the process of proactively informing private property owners about ambitious renovations, the municipalities need support from experts in the field of energy refurbishment. Also, property owners face the challenge of the social aspects in case of renovation of an inhabited building. Owners of a larger properties might not know how to prioritize.
Description
The toolkit contains tools for support and coaching:
- Description of profile and scope of tasks of an energy counsellor.
- Description of profile and scope of tasks of a facilitator.
- Steering tool for the analysis of buildings in order to prioritize renovations.
1.4.1 Life cycle sustainability assessment Framework (LCSA-F) for building retrofit
Issue/Challenge
The overall sustainability assessment from a life cycle perspective is needed to avoid burden shifting to other sustainability dimensions and to other life cycle phases of renovation measures to implement. The balance between environmental benefits and the costs as well as the social impacts (e.g. on users or the local community) is crucial to achieve overall sustainable solutions while focusing on decarbonization.
Description
The LCSA-F developed in SP 1.4 will be utilized to develop an Excel-tool, which enables different user groups to compare renovation measures for multi-family buildings regarding their overall sustainability and resilience. The tool provides information on life cycle sustainability from an economic, environmental, social and resilience point-of-view. Furthermore, an overall sustainability index will be calculated by integrating a specific multi-criteria-decision-analysis (MCDA method). Users are informed regarding trade-offs between different dimensions, categories, and indicators (see figure above for hierarchical structure) and based on the system boundary for construction and level of process detail provided by EN 15978:2011.
1.4.2 Hourly CO2 data of the Swiss electricity mix
Issue/Challenge
Assessment at a high-temporal resolution of the CO2 embedded in consumed electricity is needed to assess the environmental impacts of new electricity usages, such as heat pumps or battery electric vehicles. Such is particularly important for Switzerland, which is highly dependent on electricity imports from neighboring countries, especially in winter, some of which heavily rely on electricity generation from fossil fuels.
Description
Hourly data of the Swiss electricity mix is of paramount importance for assessing the actual environmental footprint of the heat pump market, which is expected to play a key role in decarbonization of the building stock, but also for other emerging usages such as electric mobility.
Development of annual hourly datasets regarding the Swiss electricity mix, taking into account imports and exports:
- Analysis of high-temporal electricity generation data of Switzerland and European countries.
- Identification of imports, taking into account trade mechanisms (merit-order principle).
- Generation of hourly data sets regarding CO2 emissions factor and renewable energy fraction.
