Protocol for the energy behaviour assessment of social housing stock: the case of southern Europe

The aim of recent European Directives and Regulations is the establishment of a common framework for increasing energy efficiency, encouraging the retrofitting of existing housing stock, obsolete in energy terms. Most of the studies carried out on the energy characterisation of existing housing stock for their subsequent retrofitting focus on climate areas in central and northern Europe, but there are fewer studies for southern Europe. This research was initiated in order to contribute to a better understanding of social housing in southern Europe, specifically southern Spain. A protocol was proposed for the assessment of the end-use energy behaviour of social housing stock, taking into consideration geographical location, building typologies, and morphological and constructive characteristics of the envelopes of this housing stock. This protocol is divided into two different phases: a first phase for a general energy assessment and a second phase for a detailed energy assessment. It aims to provide a general energy behaviour assessment as the first step in the proposal of guidelines and strategies for the energy retrofitting of existing social housing stock. In order to achieve these objectives, the first phase of the proposed protocol includes a typological classification of buildings and a morphological and constructive characterisation of thermal envelopes by construction period. The second phase of the protocol includes onsite data collection on hygrothermal behaviour and energy consumption and generation and validation of energy models in the buildings selected for their subsequent energy simulation and rating. In this study, the first phase of the protocol was applied to five case studies built between 1950 and 1980 in the different climate zones in the south of Spain, with the main conclusion that the existing general high level of demand due to the poor thermal performance of the envelope leads to a very low energy rating. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.