Building Energy and Environmental Performance Tool

_{Prof. Brian Cody}

How we as a society evaluate, reward and punish measures, strategies, concepts and their results will significantly influence the overall development of architecture. Therefore, the development of methods for the evaluation of energy efficiency in the built environment is an important factor for this further development, which has so far been fatally underestimated by architects. Energy efficiency is the minimization of the energy demand of a building and the achievement of optimal conditions in its rooms. Unfortunately, the term "energy efficiency" is often misunderstood today, especially in the field of construction, and the reduction of energy demand is often confused with an increase in energy efficiency. Energy efficiency is the relationship between output (benefits) and input (resources). It is about the benefit one gets from the "consumed" energy. In the context of the climatic performance of buildings, energy efficiency should be understood as the relationship between the quality of the indoor climate and the quantity of energy required. Previous instruments for regulating the energy efficiency of buildings only deal with energy demand and not with energy efficiency. The BEEP (Building Energy and Environmental Performance) method was developed to determine the actual energy performance of a building and to be able to really compare different design options. Results of case studies examined with this method clearly show that low energy consumption cannot be equated with high energy efficiency and that such a more complex assessment methodology would lead to a different future development in architecture than the methods used today. The method developed within the framework of this basic research project was presented to the scientific community at an international congress in Helsinki in June 2007. The results of further investigations regarding different variants for the refurbishment of an office building were published in 2010.

Duration

January 2006 - May 2010

Publications

Cody, B.: “Building Energy and Environmental Performance tool  BEEP, Entwicklung einer Methode zum Vergleich der tatsächlichen Energieeffizienz von Gebäuden“, in: HLH Fachzeitschrift, Verein Deutscher Ingenieure, Springer-VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf, Januar 2008

Cody, B.: “Building Energy and Environmental Performance Tool BEEP, Development of a method to determine the true energy efficiency of buildings”, Conference Proceedings, 9th REHVA World Congress Clima 2007, Helsinki, Finnland, 2007

Cody, B.: “Building Energy and Environmental Performance Tool BEEP, Development of a method to determine the true energy efficiency of buildings”, Conference Proceedings, 9th REHVA World Congress Clima 2007, Helsinki, Finnland, 2007

tug online