Abstract The paper presents a case study of an office building with a façade integrated PV system in Norway. Due to the urban surrounding the PV system is subject to significant overshadowing. The aim is to optimize the solar energy potential of the building in order to propose improved alternatives to the current system applying a multi-level simulation approach. The first level is performed to calculate the maximum solar potential on the building envelope in an unobstructed scenario. The second level examines the shading effect on the building in its urban context. The analyses allow localizing the areas of the…

Abstract The current practice of building energy upgrade typically uses thick layers of insulation in order to comply with the energy codes. Similarly, the Norwegian national energy codes for residential buildings are moving towards very low U-values for the building envelope. New and more advanced materials, such as vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) and aerogel, have been presented as alternative solutions to commonly used insulation materials. Both aerogel and VIPs offer very high thermal resistance, which is a favourable characteristic in energy upgrading as the same insulation level can be achieved with thinner insulation layers. This paper presents the results of energy…

Abstract The CO2 emissions from a building’s power system will change over the life time of the building, and this need to be taken into account to verify whether a building is Zero Emission (ZEB) or not. This paper describes how conversion factors between electricity demand and emissions can be calculated for the European power system in a long term perspective through the application of a large scale electricity market model (EMPS). Examples of two types of factors are given: a conversion factor for average emissions per kWh for the whole European power system as well as a marginal factor for…