Assessing Energy Saving Potential of a Public Building Stock in Relation to the National Implementation of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive

At present 95% of energy consumption for heating, domestic hot water, air conditioning, lighting andventilation in Europe are related to buildings built before 1980. Therefore, in order to achieve KyotoProtocol targets, the immediate priorities could be to improve energy performance of those buildings.In Italy, based on the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) delivered on 2002, first newnational benchmarks for energy efficiencies in buildings are defined and effective from January 2006.The prescriptions of the new standards, as foreseen by EU Directive, are also related to the retrofitactions for existing buildings. In this frame, Public Administrators should promote criteria, methods andtools to verify building energy quality and to define rehabilitation strategies on large scale.The present study is conducted, defining a methodology for data collection, organisation andelaboration, in order to estimate the energy performance and the potential of improvement of energysavings about existing building stocks. In the frame of the recent national implementation of the EPBD,this study provides a first example of the EU Directive effects in large scale retrofit strategies.