Renovation Needs and Potential for Improved Energy Performance Depending on Ownership – A Location Based Study of Multi-Family Building Stocks in an Urban Context

Abstract

The transformation of urban building-stocks is fundamental to achieve climate change mitigation targets. As therate of renewal of the building-stock is low, energy efficiency measures need to be applied when renovation isbeing done. To evaluate the renovation potential of the existing building stock on an urban level, a local approachis needed to understand challenges and possibilities associated with its transformation. The aim of this study is toinvestigate the renovation needs and potentials for implementation of energy efficiency measures in relation toowner and type of ownership for the buildings. For this purpose, available databases containing building-specificinformation have been gathered and processed for the multi-family building stock of the city of Gothenburg,Sweden. These data sources are used to describe the energy performance of the stock and future renovationneeds based on type of property ownership while considering the location and context of the buildings usinggeographic information systems. Building attributes such as year of construction, value year, property owner,geometric data and energy performance certificates are spatially linked and visualized to describe the energyperformance of buildings and its relation to renovation need, providing detailed and valuable information to propertyowners. Buildings from the period 1960 - 1975 are of particular importance as they constitute 42% of the multifamilybuilding stock, have the highest average energy use (146 kWh/m2/year) and have to a large extent not beenrenovated. The municipality’s housing company own 36 % of the total stock and even more so considering buildingsfrom this period. While there will be a significant challenge in renovating their stock, this also presents anopportunity for large reductions in energy use. By incorporating building-specific information and considering thebuilding in its local setting, a more holistic and realistic view on energy saving potentials can be achieved. Theresults aim to support owners of larger property portfolios in prioritizing buildings suitable for renovation.

Holger Wallbaum

Full Professor, Vice-Head of Department and Vice-Dean for Research

Holger is a Full Professor in sustainable building at the Division of Building Technology, research group Sustainable Building, and in the Area of advance Building Futures. Holger works within sustainable building on concepts, tools and strategies to enhance the sustainability performance of construction materials, building products, buildings as well as entire cities.