Wh Wim Maassen

Toward cost-effective nearly zero energy buildings: The Dutch Situation

To reduce the high energy demand and pollution of greenhouse gasses of the built environment, the Energy Performance of Building Directive came in 2010 with plans for the European Union member states. Buildings must be, according the plan, nearly zero energy and should reach this goal by implementing cost-effective (passive-) measures for a high energy performance and application of sustainable energy source(s) for the remaining demand. In this research, a study is done on recently completed Dutch sustainable and nearly zero energy buildings, from which can be concluded that the goal from the Energy Performance of Building Directive now is rarely met. Most buildings use aquifer thermal storage system with a heat pump and thermal activated building systems. However, to really meet the nearly zero energy and low CO2 emissions goal, in 2019 for public buildings and 2021 for all buildings, more focus is needed from the design teams in the early design phase toward cost-effective solutions. Life cycle costs are an important decision driver for achieving a cost-effective, nearly zero energy building. A new method, which incorporates additional benefits as productivity increase, sick leave reductions, Public Relations, and higher renting value, reveals that then an “economic optimal nearly zero energy building” can be met easier in the near future.

Towards Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings in 2020 in the Netherlands

The aim of this article is to give information and insight in nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) developments in the Netherlands that will occur in the near future and what consequences these developments have for buildings, in particular for building services. In 2020, all newly built buildings have to comply with the nZEB regulation with an energy performance coefficient ≈ 0. To support the future policy on energy performance improvements, this study provides a roadmap towards nZEBs with a technical and financial feasibility framework. Life-cycle cost calculations, also beyond cost optimality, are essential for determining the Dutch nZEB definition, because these determine if the energy efficient measures are profitable, cost-effective, and can be implemented in the building law.

LCA in The Netherlands: a case study

The Municipality of Venlo is building new municipal offices based on the guiding principles of C2C. A case study is presented on the townhall Venlo preformed in the LCA tool GreenCalc+ V2 (GC+) in a comparison with two GC+ studies on the offices of TNT and townhall Utrechtse Heuvelrug. In concluding, the MIG (Environmental Index Building) score of townhall Venlo, TNT Green Office and townhall Utrechtse Heuvelrug were calculated which showed that making a good comparison is very difficult. This indicates that is important to know how to deal with specific characteristic aspects when calculating the environmental assessment score.