Overview and future challenges of nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) design in Eastern Europe

[en] The European Unions' ambition for the construction sector is to be carbon neutral by 2030 for new construction. Since 2021, all new buildings in the EU should have been constructed as nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB). However, Eastern European countries struggle to implement the 2018 Energy Performance of Building Directive recast requirements. Next to the economic challenges, equally essential factors hinder renovating the existing residential building stock and adding newly constructed high-performance buildings sourced primarily from renewable energy sources. Therefore, this study provides a cross-study to identify the barriers of to nZEB implementation in ten Eastern European countries, including Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia. The study is was conducted between 2019 and 2021 and provides an overview of prospects for nZEB in Eastern Europe. The study examines the challenges of nZEB plans faced in those countries and provides constructive recommendations. The regulations and definitions regarding nZEB energy performance, cooling and heating energy demand, thermal comfort, onsite renewables, and construction quality were analyzed. Results show that most Eastern European countries are unprepared to comply with the EPBD guidelines and cost-optimality approach. The paper ranks each country and recommends specific measures to refine the nZEB definitions. The paper provides a thorough comparative assessment and benchmarking of select EU geography that can help shift the identified gaps into opportunities for the future development of climateneutral high-performance buildings.

Disciplines :

Architecture

Author, co-author :

Attia, Shady ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Urban and Environmental Engineering

Kurnitski, Jarek

Kosinski, Piotr ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département ArGEnCo > Techniques de construction des bâtiments

Borodiņecs, Anatolijs

Deme Belafi, Zsofia

István, Kistelegdi

Krstić, Hrvoje

Moldovan, Macedon

Visa, Ion

Mihailov, Nicolay

More authors (7 more)

Language :

English

Title :

Overview and future challenges of nearly zero-energy building (nZEB) design in Eastern Europe

Publication date :

15 July 2022

Journal title :

Energy and Buildings

ISSN :

0378-7788

eISSN :

1872-6178

Publisher :

Elsevier BV

Volume :

267

Pages :

112165

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Development Goals :

9. Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Additional URL :

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037877882200336X?via%3Dihub

Funders :

WBI - Wallonia-Brussels International [BE]

Data Set :

Data on residential nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) design in Eastern Europe

Available on ORBi :

since 15 May 2022

Statistics

Number of views

339 (17 by ULiège)

Number of downloads

498 (9 by ULiège)

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