The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Research Project: Potential for gaining knowledge about the energy quality of the building stock from energy performance certificates

Project briefing

  • Status Completed
  • Project duration March 2020 – October 2021
  • Programme Future Building

A solid understanding of the building fabric and the energy quality of the building stock in Germany is required for the conception, design, and monitoring of climate policy instruments for the building sector. Given the scarcity of data on the residential and non-residential building stock, the research project has investigated what useful information on this may be gleaned from energy performance certificates (EPC).

Background

Data on the quantitative structure, building typology and energy-related building condition, as well as on energy demand or consumption and the associated emissions, are an important planning baseline for governments and political decision-making. However, the availability of this data is partly incomplete for the residential and more particularly, for the non-residential building stock.

EPCs for buildings are frequently mentioned as a suitable source of data for gathering information about the energy quality of the building stock to fill the current data gaps. Energy performance certificates were introduced by the Energieeinsparverordnung (EnEV) 2002 and are now available for many buildings.

However, there are no scientific studies to date on what specific information could be obtained from existing EPCs and how reliable and adequate they are for deriving findings on Germany's building stock.

Objective

The project investigated which insights could potentially be gathered from the use of EPC data to make reliable statements about the energy quality of the German building stock. Both residential and non-residential EPCs were considered. In the course of the project, proposals were developed on how the essential contents of EPCs could be beneficially used, if necessary, by including further data sources.

The contractor was Energy System Analysis Associates – ESA² GmbH, Dresden.

Contact us

  • Monika Schröder
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division WB 2 "Instrumente zur Emissionsminderung im Gebäudebereich"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-1636
    Email: monika.schroeder@bbr.bund.de

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