Building-stock aggregation through archetype buildings: France, Germany, Spain and the UK

Knowledge regarding the characteristics of national building stocks is fundamental to understanding how the energy performance of the building stock can be improved. To facilitate large diversity and a number of buildings for such analyses, this paper presents a methodology by which national building stocks may be aggregated through archetype buildings. The methodology has been implemented and verified in four EU countries in regions with different climates, namely France, Germany, Spain and the UK. These countries account for about half of the final energy consumption of the EU-28 buildings. The analysis includes the residential and non-residential sectors (residential sector only for Germany). The number of archetypes per country has been defined according to different categories of building type, construction year, climate region and the main fuel source for heating purposes. The accuracy of the description is validated by simulating energy demand using the ECCABS Building Stock Model, and comparing the final energy demand modeled with corresponding statistical data. The total final energy demand calculated for these countries differs from available statistics by between -6% and +2%, which is considered satisfactory. The proposed description of the building stock is being used as a basis for analyzing the potential for and cost of energy conservation measures. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.