Energy Use in the EU Building Stock - Case Study: UK

Abstract: Previous studies in building energy assessmnet have made it clear that the largest potential energy efficiency improvements are conected to the retrofitting of existing buildings. But, lack of information about the building stock and associated modelling tools is one of the barriers to assessment of energy efficiency strategies in the building stocks. Therefore, a methodology has been developed to describe any building stock by the means of archetype buildings.  The aim has been to assess the effects of energy saving measures. The model which is used for the building energy simulation is called:  Energy, Carbon and Cost Assessment for Buildings Stocks (ECCABS). This model calculated the net energy demand aggregated in heating, cooling, lighting, hotwater and appliances.   This model has already been validated using the Swedish residential stock as a test case. The present work continues the development of the methodology by focusing on the UK building stock by discribing the UK building stock trough archetype buildings and their physical properties which are used as inputs to the ECCABS. In addition, this work seekes to check the adequacy of applying the ECCABS model to the UK building stock. The outputs which are the final energy use of the entire building stock are compared to data available in national and international sources.   The UK building stoch is described by a total of 252 archetype buildings. It is determined by considering nine building typologies, four climate zones, six periods of construction and two types of heating systems. The total final energy demand calculated by ECCABS for the residential sector is 578.83 TWh for the year 2010, which is 2.6 % higher than the statistics provided by the Department of Energy and Climate Change(DECC). In the non-residential sector the total final energy demand is 77.28 TWh for the year 2009, which is about 3.2% lower than the energy demand given by DECC. Potential reasons which could have affected the acuracy of the final resualts are discussed in this master thesis.