Energy efficient renovation measures with low investment cost for existing buildings: methods of application of such measures on buildings in turkey and possible impacts

Although recent EPBD that published in 2010 (EPBD-Recast) provided cost optimal analysis as a mandatory item for all EU Member States and obligated MS to define cost optimal levels of minimum energy performance requirements, there are problems regarding the financing of cost optimal Energy Efficient Renovations (EER). In many societies encouraging building owners to involve in an EER programs with high investment cost is not so convenient, especially for rental buildings even this can be impossible. Also one of big challenges to reach to the goals of Horizon 2020 of EU is to provide appropriate financing options to EER of existing buildings. Moreover, as stated by Energy Efficient Directive (EED) of EU “the rate of building renovation needs to be increased, as the existing building stock represents the single biggest potential sector for energy savings”, using low investment cost measures could reduce necessity to extra financing sources for such renovations and can be encouraging for buildings owners and tenants. At the first glimpse the main disadvantage for low investment renovations is the less amount of energy saving that can be provided for buildings. But by narrow focus on the subject, it can be found that although the amount of energy saving for this kind of renovations in case of a building is lower than cost optimal level and advanced renovations level, they can be applied to huge amount of buildings conveniently, hence, provide societies with huge amount of energy saving in less possible time. On the other hand, for old buildings that have less remained life span, application of such measures seems to be more rational than advanced measures. The main objectives of this research are to make an overview about low investment cost renovation measures that optimized thermal properties of building envelope and to determine the methods and impacts of application of such measures on Turkey‘s existing buildings and economy. In order to define low investment cost measures, the average income of Turkey‘s households is considered and to reach to the goals of this paper, three sample residential units are investigated thoroughly and simulated using detailed dynamic simulations; low investment measures are applied to them and cost analysis is done using EN15459 and EPBD-Recast’s methodology.