IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet

Delning av underutnyttjade resurser kan vara en viktig pusselbit i omställningen till en mer hållbar konsumtion. Projektet Delningens potential har tittat på potentialen att dela transporter, lokaler och verktyg. Projektet har finansierats genom det strategiska innovationsprogrammet RE:Source och genomförts av IVL Svenska Miljöinstitutet i samverkan med KTH och Lunds universitet.

Detta är en kortversion av rapporten från projektet Delningens potential, där vi bedömt potentialen för att delning av transporter, verktyg och yta ökar och samtidigt bidrar till ekonomiska, sociala och miljömässiga vinster. I Sverige finns en lång tradition och vana av att dela på resurser. Delning har potential att ge både ekologiska, sociala och ekonomiska vinster under vissa förutsättningar.

Urban building-stocks use a significant amount of resources and energy. At the same time, they have a large potential for energy efficiency measures (EEM). To support decision-making and planning, spatial building-stock models are used to examine the current state and future development of urban building-stocks. While these models normally focus on specific cities, generic and broad stakeholder groups such as planners and policy makers are often targeted. Consequently, the visualization and communication of results are not tailored to these stakeholders.

This paper uses a differentiated building-stock description based on building-specific data and measured energy use from energy performance certificates for multi-family buildings (MFB) in the city of Gothenburg. The building-stock description treats every building as unique, allowing results to be provided at any level of aggregation to suit the needs of the specific stakeholders involved. Calculated energy use of the existing stock is within 10% of the measured energy use.

The potential for EEM in the existing stock is negated by the increased energy use due to new construction until 2035, using a development scenario based on current renovation rates and planned developments. Visualizations of the current energy use of the stock as well as the impact of renovation and new construction are provided, targeting specific local stakeholders.

Although the body of scientific publications on energy efficiency and climate mitigation from buildings has been growing quickly in recent years, very few previous bibliometric analysis studies exist that analyze the literature in terms of specific content (trends or options for zero-energy buildings) or coverage of different scientific databases. We evaluate the scientific literature published since January 2013 concerning alternative methods for improving the energy efficiency and mitigating climate impacts from buildings. We quantify and describe the literature through a bibliometric approach, comparing the databases Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus. A total of 19,416 (Scopus) and 17,468 (WoS) publications are analyzed, with only 11% common documents. The literature has grown steadily during this time period, with a peak in the year 2017. Most of the publications are in English, in the area of Engineering and Energy Fuels, and from institutions from China and the USA. Strong links are observed between the most published authors and institutions worldwide. An analysis of keywords reveals that most of research focuses on technologies for heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning, phase change materials, as well as information and communication technologies. A significantly smaller segment of the literature takes a broader perspective (greenhouse gas emissions, life cycle, and sustainable development), investigating implementation issues (policies and costs) or renewable energy (solar). Knowledge gaps are detected in the areas of behavioral changes, the circular economy, and some renewable energy sources (geothermal, biomass, small wind). We conclude that (i) the contents of WoS and Scopus are radically different in the studied fields; (ii) research seems to focus on technological aspects; and (iii) there are weak links between research on energy and on climate mitigation and sustainability, the latter themes being misrepresented in the literature. These conclusions should be validated with further analyses of the documents identified in this study. We recommend that future research focuses on filling the above identified gaps, assessing the contents of several scientific databases, and extending energy analyses to their effects in terms of mitigation potentials

The buildings sector is a major consumer of energy and resources throughout the entire life cycle of the buildings (materials sourcing, design, manufacturing, distribution, consumption, disposal) with corresponding greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The contribution of the sector is therefore key to achieving ambitious climate targets. In particular, to maintain global warming below target of 1.5 °C, a carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 9 Gt is required just from the global building sector (Wang et al, 2018). This will need to be achieved by a reduction in energy consumption and decarbonization of electricity production. Equally substantial reductions are required from the other life cycle phases: materials production, construction and demolition phases, which are typically accounted as changes in the industrial sector. The improvement of resource flows through a Circular Economy (CE) approach that includes reducing, reusing, recycling and recovering materials and products, facilitates a decoupling of growth from resource consumption (Kalmykova et al, 2018). This can provide clear advantages from an environmental perspective, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals and to climate change mitigation. However, the literature has identified that despite a global trend of improved operational performance, there are rising “embodied” emissions from processing and manufacturing of building materials. Industrial recycling and energy recovery are the most common practices, even when reuse is believed to have higher economic and environmental value (Eberhardt et al, 2019). The Sharing Economy (SE), offers several opportunities for the building sector by promoting reuse, enabling shared ownership, access or use to increase the utilization rate of products and systems (e.g. shared accommodation, social spaces, offices or tools). Recent literature clearly highlights for the building sector the urgent need for a range of actions across the life cycle such as reduced operational and embodied impacts, as well as strategies to increase alignment of goals and action from numerous stakeholders along the value chain (Röck et al, 2020). This needs to be implemented with specific reference to people, cultures and norms in which the strategies are deployed. The pressure on the sector to embrace its role as provider of critical climate mitigation solutions, is expected to increase. There are however few explicit links to sustainable development and climate mitigation, and little common ground for the variety of analytical approaches and tools. The main aim of the CE in the literature is considered to be economic prosperity, followed by environmental quality; its impact on social equity and future generations is rarely mentioned. Circular and shared economy imply the adoption of cleaner production patterns, an increase of producers’ and consumers’ responsibility and awareness, the use of renewable technologies and materials as well as the adoption of suitable policies. It applies to different systems levels from the macro (neighborhood, city, region, nation and beyond) to the micro level (consumer, product, company). It requires the engagement of all actors in society and their capacity to create and exchange transformative patterns. In all, transition to the era of circular and shared economy aligned with climate goals requires more knowledge on the necessary changes in household’s behavior, design practices, construction and de-construction methods, business models and legal frameworks (Laurenti et al, 2019). This Virtual Special Issue (VSI) calls for new research contributions on mitigation potentials from the Circular and Sharing Economy in the buildings sector worldwide.

To benchmark the contributions of building retrofits to the National Energy Efficiency Action Plans (NEEAPs) of the Member States (MS) of the European Union (EU) and to identify potential improvements to the general EU methodology, this paper presents homogenous mapping of the potential for energy savings and associated effects on CO2 emissions for the building stocks of five selected MS: France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The mapping is created using a verified building stock modeling methodology, and includes results related to technical and techno-economical improvements for ten energy conservation measures (ECMs) and six ECM packages. These results are compared to the corresponding estimates in the NEEAPs, as well as those in the literature.

Although both our results and those in the literature show high variability for the cost-efficiency of the ECMs between the five national building stocks, the potential application of complete ECM packages generally appears to be more profitable than the application of individual ECMs. Certain challenges must be overcome before this potential can be realized. The energy savings for Year 2020 projected in the NEEAPs appear to be overly optimistic when one considers the efficiency trends, current regulatory framework, and techno-economical potential detailed in this study. Furthermore, the NEEAPs are not in full compliance with the requirements of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive. These requirements could be defined more specifically, so as to address the identified information gaps, thereby facilitating the implementation and monitoring of energy savings in existing buildings.

Buildings contribute 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions; therefore, strategies that can substantially reduce emissions from the building stock are key components of broader efforts to mitigate climate change and achieve sustainable development goals. Models that represent the energy use of the building stock at scale under various scenarios of technology deployment have become essential tools for the development and assessment of such strategies. Within the past decade, the capabilities of building stock energy models have improved considerably, while model transferability and sharing has increased. Given these advancements, a new scheme for classifying building stock energy models is needed to facilitate communication of modeling approaches and the handling of important model dimensions. In this article, we present a new building stock energy model classification framework that leverages international modeling expertise from the participants of the International Energy Agency's Annex 70 on Building Energy Epidemiology. Drawing from existing classification studies, we propose a multi-layer quadrant scheme that classifies modeling techniques by their design (top-down or bottom-up) and degree of transparency (black-box or white-box); hybrid techniques are also addressed. The quadrant scheme is unique from previous classification approaches in its non-hierarchical organization, coverage of and ability to incorporate emerging modeling techniques, and treatment of additional modeling dimensions. The new classification framework will be complemented by a reporting protocol and online registry of existing models as part of ongoing work in Annex 70 to increase the interpretability and utility of building stock energy models for energy policy making.

Denna rapport gör en översiktlig inventering över indikatorer för miljömässig och social hållbarhet för byggande och boende. Meningen med inventeringen är att ge kunskapsunderlag för diskussioner kring hur hållbarhetskriterier kan konstrueras och användas av kommunerna i Storstockholm för att driva på hållbarhetsarbetet i stadsutvecklingen. Det finns många indikatorsystem utarbetade av olika aktörer. Indikatorer finns på olika nivåer, från byggnader till hela städer. Rapporten går igenom åtta miljöcertifieringssystem som finns på den svenska marknaden, sex uppföljningssystem som används bland kommuner i Storstockholm och 14 internationella indikatorsystem för hållbara städer. Sammanfattningsvis listas 189 indikatorer inom social-, miljömässig och ekonomisk hållbarhet samt inom förvaltning och styrning. Att välja lämpliga indikatorer beror till stor del på vilka mål man vill styra mot, samt arbetsbördan som krävs för att ta fram underlagsdata, redovisa resultat och eventuellet låter verifiera detta. Datatillgänglighet är en viktig aspekt för att välja lämpligt indikatorsystem. Uppföljnings- och rankingsystem för städer kan även handla om att redovisa strategier och planer för att uppnå mål kopplade till Agenda 2030 och nationella miljökvalitetsmål. Då jämförs inte nyckeltal utan en bedömning görs till vilken grad utvalda områden uppfylls. Rapporten ger på så vis underlag för en diskussion kring vilka hållbarhetskriterier som bäst skulle driva på stadsutvecklingen i Storstockholm.

The buildings and construction sector plays a key role in achieving social, environmental, and economic goals. To urgently bring about the significant changes required in the sector to achieve climate goals, all stakeholders require access to updated knowledge to ensure that they can easily make choices that are aligned with the goals.

To achieve this aim, this report summarizes the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of Working Group (WG) III’s contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6), 'Mitigation of Climate Change', Chapter 9 'Buildings'.

The chapter shows that global CO2 emissions from buildings increased by 50% from 1990 to 2019. By retrofitting existing buildings and using efficient techniques to reduce climate impact in new construction, it is possible to approach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. Actions by 2030 are crucial to fully capture the potential for reduced climate impact from buildings.

The transition of the building sector requires strong collaboration with many other sectors, as it is closely linked to sectors such as the energy sector, land use, resource utilization, and waste management. This requires ambitious policy packages, such as the use of renewable energy sources, as well as efficient design and use of space, energy, materials, and appliances.

Increased flexibility at the grid edge is required to achieve ambitious climate goals and can be provided by smart energy solutions. By systematically reviewing the literature, we provide an overview of the potential flexibility of different residential electrical loads for France, Germany, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. While 85% of the studies aimed to identify potentials for shifting electrical energy use in time, the other 15% aimed to identify energy-saving potentials. Most of the data were found for the German and British electrical systems. A wide range of flexibility measures (e.g., price mechanisms, user-centered control strategies for space heating and water heating, automated shifting of appliances' use, EV charging algorithms, and consumer feedback) and methods (e.g., simulations, trials, and interviews) have been used. Potentials obtained from the literature have been upscaled to the national level, including corresponding effects in terms of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The results show that between 2% and 18% of residential sector electricity in the four countries could be shifted, resulting in total emission reductions of 10 MtCO2 from peak shaving, or 24 MtCO2 per year if optimizing the deployment of renewables. The literature identifies substantial economic, technical, and behavioral benefits from implementing flexibility measures. In all the cases, it seems that the current regulatory framework would need to change to facilitate participation. Recognized risks include higher peaks and congestions in low price-hours and difficulties in designing electricity tariffs because of conflicts with CO2 intensity as well as potential instability in the entire electricity system caused by tariffs coupling to wholesale electricity pricing.

Ökad flexibilitet i elnätets utkant är nödvändigt för att uppnå ambitiöst satta klimatmål. En sådan ökad flexibilitet kan fås genom smarta energilösningar. Dessa lösningar förväntas vara en del av det pågående skiftet inom energiförsörjningen, med ett större fokus på förnybar energi, både centralt och distribuerat i näten. Detta kombineras med att konsumenter får möjlighet att minska sina energikostnader genom att flytta sin elförbrukning i tiden, får bättre information kring och lösningar för att automatisera sin energiförbrukning och kan ta steget mot att bli prosumenter.

Genom en systematisk genomgång av vetenskaplig litteratur ges en överblick av den potentiella flexibilitet som finns hos olika el-laster i bostadssektorn i Frankrike, Tyskland, Storbritannien och Sverige. Uppgifterna har hämtats från litteratur och skalats upp homogent för att spegla den nationella potentialen, inklusive effekten som den potentiella flexibiliteten har på koldioxidutsläppen.

Våra resultat visar att mellan 2% och 18% av elanvändningen i bostadssektorn i de fyra EU-länderna kan flyttas i tiden, vilket skulle resultera i att utsläpp på mellan 10 och 28 Mton CO2 per år kan undvikas till förmån för att maximera användandet av förnybara energikällor. Med dagens prismekanismer och tariffer för energianvändning är flexibilitet av denna typ inte ekonomiskt hållbar och därför krävs förändringar.

A bottom-up dynamic modeling framework aiming to incorporate realities of the decision-making process when implementing energy-saving building renovations is proposed and applied to a case study of all multifamily buildings in Gothenburg, Sweden. The developed model is based on real conditions of existing buildings, from the national Energy Performance Certificate database, building and property registers, and cadastral maps from the city planning office. Although explorative, the framework accounts for the reaction capacity in terms of (i) investments by all property owners and (ii) total workmanship capacity in the city. Two scenarios were considered to account for renovations driven solely by technical renovation needs (end-of-life of building components) and by cost efficiency; further, both scenarios were investigated at different levels of reaction capacity. The developed framework is easily replicable to other regions and cities. The retrofitting includes, as individual measures as well as in packages, increased insulation levels, increased efficiency of lighting and appliances, and the installation of heat recovery systems and photovoltaic panels. Whereas implementation of energy-efficient measures dictated solely by technical renovation needs led to a very low energy demand, with some buildings becoming energy producers by 2050, implementation strictly driven by cost-efficiency (from the perspective of the property owners) only reduced the energy demand by 5% during this time and would not fully utilize the investment capacity of the property owners. Furthermore, the current limitations of reaction capacity for the market shares allowed for a reduction of the energy demand by only 15% during the same period. Workmanship capacity was more constraining than investment capacity and is thus identified as a local imperative need and suggests co-benefits related to job creation within the construction sector.

Formulation of targets and establishing which factors in different contexts will achieve these targets are critical to successful decarbonization of the building sector. To contribute to this, we have performed an evidence map of roadmaps for zero and low energy and carbon buildings (ZLECB) worldwide, including a list and classification of documents in an on-line geographical map, a description of gaps, and a narrative review of the knowledge gluts. We have retrieved 1219 scientific documents from Scopus, extracted metadata from 274 documents, and identified 117 roadmaps, policies or plans from 27 countries worldwide. We find that there is a coverage bias towards more developed regions. The identified scientific studies are mostly recommendations to policy makers, different types of case studies, and demonstration projects. The geographical inequalities found in the coverage of the scientific literature are even more extreme in the coverage of the roadmaps. These underexplored world regions represent an area for further investigation and increased research/policy attention. Our review of the more substantial amount of literature and roadmaps for developed regions shows differences in target metrics and enforcement mechanisms but that all regions dedicate some efforts at national and local levels. Roadmaps generally focus more on new and public buildings than existing buildings, despite the fact that the latter are naturally larger in number and total floor area, and perform less energy efficiently. A combination of efficiency, technical upgrades, and renewable generation is generally proposed in the roadmaps, with behavioral measures only reflected in the use of information and communication technologies, and minimal focus being placed on lifecycle perspectives. We conclude that insufficient progress is being made in the implementation of ZLECB. More work is needed to couple the existing climate goals, with realistic, enforceable policies to make the carbon savings a reality for different contexts and stakeholders worldwide.

This study develops a reproducible method for estimating the cost-efficient flexibility potential of a local or regional energy system. Future scenarios that achieve ambitious climate targets and estimate the cost-efficient flexibility potential of demonstration sites were defined. Flexible potentials for energy system assessment are upscaled from the demonstration sites in Eskilstuna (Sweden) and Lower Austria (Austria). As heat pumps (HPs) and district heating (DH) are critical for future heat demand, these sites are representative types of DH networks in terms of size and integration with the electricity grid. In both regions a TIMES model is used for energy system optimization, while for upscaling, Eskilstuna uses the building-stock model ECCABS, whereas Lower Austria uses a mixed integer linear programming optimization model, and the BALMOREL power system model. According to the modeling, HPs will dominate Eskilstuna's heating sector by 2040. In Lower Austria, DH becomes more prevalent, in combination with wood biomass and HPs. These findings are explained by the postulated technological-economic parameters, energy prices, and CO2 prices. We conclude that future electricity prices will determine future heating systems: either a high share of centralized HPs (if electricity prices are low) or a high share of combined heat-and-power (if electricity prices are high). Large-scale energy storage and biomass can be essential solutions as may deliver increased cost-effectiveness, if available and under certain conditions.