Energy performance certification of the EU Berlaymont building

Hans Erhorn email: [email protected] Heike Erhorn-Kluttig email: [email protected] Nina Wei e-mail: [email protected] Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics Nobelstr. 12, 70569 Stuttgart, Germany http://www.ibp.fhg.de KEYWORDS: EPBD, energy performance, certificate, DIN V 18599 SUMMARY: Within an international project coordinated by the European Commission the primary energy demand of the newly retrofitted Berlaymont building (head office of the EU-Commission in Brussels) was assessed. The calculation methods used are the national regulation codes for the implementation of the energy performance of buildings directive (EPBD). The Fraunhofer Institute of Building Physics (IBP) overtook the work for Germany on behalf of the German ministry of transport, building and housing (BMVBW) and has applied the calculation method of the DIN V 18599 that represents the coming assessment method for buildings. In total 6 European countries have assessed the building and the certificates will be shown in January 2005 in the entrance area of the Berlaymont building.

1. Introduction
The European Union has established new requirements in the energy for buildings sector to most of the member states by bringing the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) into force. From January 2006 all member states of the EU have to include the following in their legislation on building: a methodology for the calculation of the energy performance of buildings; the application of minimum requirements on the energy performance of new buildings, and of existing buildings that are subject to major renovation energy certification of buildings

regular inspection of boilers, air-conditioning systems and assessment of heating systems with boilers that are more than 15 years old. In an European-wide pilot project, the Berlaymont Certification Group of the EU-EPBD Article 14 Committee, the EU has asked the different countries to apply their calculation codes for the energy certification on the same building, the seat of the European Commission in Brussels called Berlaymont. Five countries have been ready at the end of 2004 with their standards so that they could participate in the project. The countries were: France, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal. Austria is currently still working on the calculation. The Polish calculation is not based on a standard but on a computer simulation program. Each country had to use the own national boundary conditions and weather data.

2. The Berlaymont building

The European Commission Headquarters building in Brussels has been unoccupied since the discovery of 1,400 tons of asbestos in the early 1990s. For the refurbishment of the building there were several requirements such as to keep the shape as it was considered to be a landmark, to reorganise the traffic areas

in the centre because of ill-defined spaces and sterile volumes that made the interior disorientating, to produce a benchmark model building in terms of environmental health and safety standards as well as from the points of view of energy saving through rational use of energy. The renovation project was launched in 1995, finished in 2004 and the team of 70 people comprised of architects, engineers and administrative staff was managed by Pierre Lallemand and Steven Beckers. Figure 1 shows photos of the building. It is characterised by 2 separate features, the 13 storey tower (+1 technical storey in the roofing) and the basement. Internal functions are provided for offices (mostly 1st to 12th floor), meeting rooms (on every second floor and in the 13th storey the Commission meeting room), interpreter boxes, auditoriums, circulation areas, sanitary areas, entrance hall, cafeteria and self-service restaurants, radio and tv studio and a parking garage. The refurbishment provides disabled access to all areas of the building.

FIG. 1: Photo of the Berlaymont building during the retrofit.

FIG. 2: Photo of the Berlaymont building after the retrofit.

2.1 Energy saving and environmental healthy retrofit features

The building includes some interesting retrofit features in terms of energy saving and environmental friendly products. The most visible one is the faade system that was developed especially for this project. It is a double skin faade with a closed interior facade of low-e-coated glazings and an exterior faade made up of mobile louvres, which shall counter the effects of the weather conditions and regulate the entry of heat and light. Made of laminated glass with an interstitial printed film, the louvres appear white (white dots) from the outside and transparent from the inside (black dots). Occupants can open the floor to ceiling glazing (inner skin). The outer leaf of the faade is offset 1 m for maintenance access. The faade system is managed by a computer connected to a small weather station on the top of the building and to the BMS for security mode. Figure 3 presents the faade from the inside and the outside. The obsolete heating and air-conditioning plant was replaced by a cogeneration plant to produce heat and electricity from natural gas including the recycling of used air from the offices to the car parks. The cold production is done by combining absorption coolers (using heat produced by the cogeneration plant), chillers and ice storage. There is a centralised management system for the optimum running of the installations and a lighting management plant. The environmental-friendliness as goal was achieved by for example selective waste sorting, rigorous storage and the use of non-toxic and recyclable materials.

FIG. 3: Double-skin faade system of the Berlaymont building seen from the inside and the outside.

3. German calculations and certification

The Fraunhofer Institute of Building Physics was authorized by the Bundesamt fr Bauwesen und Raumordnung (BBR) to perform the calculation and certify the building according to the new German standard DIN V 18599.

3.1 DIN V 18599

The calculations are based on the new calculation standard DIN V 18599 which will be used as calculation code for the implementation of the EPBD. The code contains a holistic approach for the energy demand calculation and is divided into 12 different parts as described in figure 4. The primary energy demand as the final result is calculated in the following steps:

- calculation of net energy demands (heating, cooling, air-conditioning) - calculation of final energy demands (lighting, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, DHW, multifunctional generators) - calculation of primary energy demands based on primary energy factors

FIG. 4: Structure of the new German Standard DIN V 18599.

3.2 Zoning of the building

The first step of the calculation is the zoning of the building according to different usages and/or HVAC systems of rooms. In the case of the Berlaymont the building was divided into 8 zones: Z1: Press conferences Z2: Restaurants Z3: Kitchens Z4: Service areas, foyers, archives, etc. Z5: Offices, media Z6: Meeting rooms Z7: Technics Z8: Car park An example for the zoning is presented in figure 5. The geometric values for all zones were calculated from the architectural drawings provided by the EU-Commission. These values include the floor areas, the volume, the areas of the surfaces around the zones, etc. The U-values and other technical data were used according to the basic information from the Commission (September/November 2004). The expenditure factors for the HVAC systems were calculated based on the description of systems provided by the Commission. It was decided in the project to use the national weather data for the calculations. In the German case this the average national climate data (Wrzburg).

FIG. 5: Zoning of the Berlaymont building in floor 1 to 12.

3.3 Results of the calculations according to DIN V 18599

The first step in the calculation procedure is to work out the net energy demands. As the lighting energy demand (here net energy = final energy) provides input to heating and cooling and air-conditioning, this has to be brought forward. Table 1 presents the calculated net energy demand for the different energy parts. Additionally to heating, cooling and lighting there are domestic hot water and distribution and moisture of the air-conditioning. With the help of efficiency figures calculated on the base of many input values, the net energy demand is transferred to final energy demand. Here the demands have to be divided into energy provided by the cogeneration the different cooling plants and electricity, partly also for auxiliary. The primary energy factors defined in the DIN V 18599 are multiplied with the final energy parts and result in the primary energy demand of the building as follows in table 1:

TAB. 1: Results of the calculation of the net energy, the final energy and the primary energy demand of the Berlaymont building according to the German standard DIN V 18599.
unit net energy final energy final energy aux. primary energy primary energy aux. total primary energy kWh/a kWh/a kWh/a kWh/a kWh/a kWh/a heating cooling AC distribution AC moisture lighting DHW total

11.150.350 2.171.089 2.069.043 457.105 3.191.370 1.511.868 20.550.825 18.898.505 3.066.446 0 616.269 3.191.370 2.562.435 30.404.068 557.517 173.687 2.069.043 9.142 0 45.356 785.703 13.228.953 2.146.513 0 1.848.806 9.574.110 1.793.704 34.799.217 1.672.552 14.901.506 521.061 6.207.130 27.426 0 136.068 2.357.108

2667.574 6.207.130 1.876.232 9.574.110 1.929.773 37.156.325

Related to the floor area (net floor area including car park and technics = 170.721 m) the energy demands amount to the values given in table 2. TAB. 2: Results of the calculation of the net energy, the final energy and the primary energy demand of the Berlaymont building in relation to the net floor area according to the German standard DIN V 18599.
unit net energy final energy final energy aux. primary energy primary energy aux. total primary energy kWh/ma kWh/ma kWh/ma kWh/ma kWh/ma kWh/ma heating 65,31 110,70 3,27 77,49 9,80 87,29 cooling 12,72 17,96 1,02 12,57 3,05 15,63 AC distribution 12,12 0,00 12,12 0,00 36,36 36,36 AC moisture 2,68 3,61 0,05 10,83 0,16 10,99 lighting 18,69 18,69 0,00 56,08 0,00 56,08 DHW 8,86 15,01 0,27 10,51 0,80 11,30 total 120,38 178,09 4,60 203,84 13,81 217,64

As the final certification is dividing the energy into heating, cooling, AC moisture, ventilation, lighting and domestic hot water, the energy constituents were grouped like presented in table 3. TAB. 3: Results of the calculation of the net energy, the final energy and the primary energy demand of the Berlaymont building in relation to the net floor area according to the German standard DIN V 18599 grouped into the energy parts as presented on the certification leaflet.
unit net energy final energy kWh/ma kWh/ma heating 65,31 113,96 87,29 cooling 12,72 18,98 15,63 AC distribution 12,12 12,12 36,36 AC moisture 2,68 3,66 10,99 lighting 18,69 18,69 56,08 DHW 8,86 15,28 11,30 total 120,38 182,69 217,64

primary energy kWh/ma

Figure 6 shows the result of the calculations. If we compare the distribution between heating, cooling and lighting as the major parts of the energy demands we see that the Berlaymont building is in all energy

levels (net, final and primary) a heating dominated building. Because of the higher primary energy factors for the lighting and the ventilation these parts become more important if regarded as primary energy demand. Domestic hot water and also the cooling part are secondary because of the function of the building as office mostly and the low efficiency factors and primary energy factors for the cooling provided by the cogeneration.
Heating Net energy (building only) Cooling AC moisture Ventilation Final energy (incl. HVAC) Lighting DHW

Primary energy (influence on environment) 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Energy demand [ kWh/ma ]

FIG. 6: Analysis of the results of the energy calculations.

4. German certification of the Berlaymont building

Figure 8 presents the German certification leaflet for the Berlaymont building. Besides a short description of the building it contains the energy analysis of figure 6 and a benchmarking of the calculated primary energy demand compared to similar office buildings, see figure 7. The Berlaymont building (thick upper arrow) shows a considerable lower energy demand as average air-conditioned office buildings in Germany (lower right arrow) resp. even as energy-efficient air-conditioned buildings from the Suisse SIA requirements (lower left arrow). Thus the building has to be regarded as an energy-efficient building.

FIG. 7: Benchmarking of the energy demand of the Berlaymont building as part of the German certification leaflet.

FIG. 8: German certificate of the energy demand of the Berlaymont building after the retrofit.

5. Certifications from other countries

The certification leaflets of the other participating countries are shown in figure 9. All certifications will be displayed in the entrance area of the building during an official event in April/May 2005.

France

The Netherlands

Poland

Portugal

FIG. 9: Certification leaflets of the other participating countries in the project.

6. References
DIN V 18599 Energy demand of buildings. Beuth-Verlag, Berlin (2005).