Investigations on the impact of constructional and technical measures on the energy consumption of six comparable buildings

In Munich's new quarter "Messestadt Riem" have been mounted six identically constructed and oriented apartment buildings (a total of 48 apartments) in the year 2010 for treating the questions of energysaving building and modernisation in the future. While one building serves as reference, the other buildings are adapted with fabric or technical measures. The aim of this monitoring project is to evaluate the potential of different approaches to reduce the energy consumption in residential buildings considering also the impact on the comfort and the investment- respectively operational-costs. The evaluation of the first whole year 2012 shows differences in heating energy consumption between some buildings. The Reference House and the House with a thermally improved building envelope show the highest energy consumption. The building type which is equipped with intelligent thermostatic valves turns out as the house with the lowest consumption. It consumes about 8000 kWh less heating energy than the reference house with the standard equipment of the public housing company that mounted the social housings according to the German energy saving regulation of the year 2007. It can be asserted that with the exception of the building with the wall-heating system, the evaluated room temperatures and window opening times are moving in the same range. Detailed investigations will focus on the user influence (e.g. occupancy, internal heat loads, ventilation behavior etc.) or fabric variations (e.g. analysis of thermographic images) possibly playing a major role in terms of energy efficiency. A decisive factor can also be the right application of the additional technical equipment by the user and the correct interaction of the systems and the user. Finally the user awareness must be strengthened being a further factor deciding about the success of investments in energy saving components and fabrics.