non-residential buildings

In order to reduce the primary energy consumption of buildings, highly efficient heat recovery of the HVAC system is indispensable. A reduction of the fresh air rate is not advisable; Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is essential for the health and wellbeing of the user. In order to nullify the additional pressure loss of the heat recovery unit a mechanical ventilation system is needed.

The last decades big steps have been made on the road to develop and design energy neutral buildings. Despite the large list of developments and improvements of all kind of energy saving technologies we see specifically for the larger non-residential buildings that the electric energy use for fans hardly show any reduction and becomes a dominant factor in the total energy use of these buildings. The fan energy currently counts already for approximately 15-20% of the total building related energy and becomes increasingly important. 

Since many years, several monitoring studies have shown that the quality and compliance of installed ventilation systems can be low. The recently developed Evaluation scheme in Belgium tries to tackle this problem, thanks to the mandatory Ventilation Performance Report of all new ventilation installations, to be delivered by a Ventilation Reporter recognised by a Third-Party control organisation. This factsheet describes the approach of this scheme, including the penalty scheme and the role of the actors involved.

Ductwork airtightness is an input parameter in the French energy performance calculation method for new buildings (RT 2012) which influences the energy performance rating. If the ductwork airtightness class used in the calculation is better than the default value (2.5*class A), the ductwork airtightness has to be justified in accordance with a third-party testing scheme operational since 2014. Furthermore, there is a minimum ductwork airtightness requirement set to leakage class A if the building applies for the Effinergie+ or BEPOS labels.

Systems providing space heating, ventilation, space cooling and/or domestic hot water (HVAC) to residential or commercial buildings are playing a major role in the building energy performance. Eurovent Certita Certification manages a voluntary certification of the performance of heating, ventilation and air conditioning products, under the European mark “Eurovent Certified Performance”. Such a certification increases confidence in the published performance data of products and provides an easier access to input data for calculation of a building’s energy performance.

Since 2006, the Effinergie certification has been a major market driver in France for energy efficiency initiatives in all building types, new and renovated. It has been a laboratory for the 2012 energy regulation in France, for instance, for the overall primary energy minimum requirements or for the mandatory justification of an envelope airtightness level. In the same vein, the Effinergie+ and Bepos labels operational since 2012 and 2013 experiment new requirements and methods, which will serve for the 2020 revision of the energy regulation.

Because of the relative complexity of the French method for calculating the energy performance of new buildings, the selection of input data for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems can be a challenge without any guidance.

Building air leakage rate is taken into account in energy calculations, but mainly with default tabulated values. With tabulated values, there is an option to use measured values instead of more conservative tabulated values. Regarding compliance, usually there is no requirement to measure and verify the building air leakage rate (except in France).

Airtightness performance of the building has a significant weight in the Belgian EPB-calculation and the number of pressurisation tests in new buildings is strongly increasing. To face the potential lack of tester’s skills and to ensure a reliable value, a quality framework has been achieved according to which testers have to pass an exam and could be controlled. This factsheet describes the relevant quality framework and its context.