The plans are ambitious: it has already been established that all new buildings must be climate-neutral by 2020. Even if a precise interpretation of the climate neutrality requirements is still being worked on in Berlin and Brussels, the trend among new buildings is already very much towards zero-energy and energy-plus buildings. New concepts, materials, systems and design methods for these “buildings of the future” were presented at a symposium held by the EnOB research initiative.

On the first day of the Research Symposium (18 January), more than 300 delegates were given an insight into new concepts, developments and design methods for “buildings of the future”. The symposium presented, for example, new strategies for improved occupant comfort and optimised operation management, new methodologies for comprehensive economic viability analyses, current trends in building and system simulations as well as new building components and systems.

The European Commission and the German federal government have set out very ambitious plans: By 2050, it is intended to completely modernise the existing building stock in terms of energy utilisation so that buildings require on average just 20% of the current energy requirements. Climate-neutral buildings will be the standard for new buildings in 2020. How this can happen was demonstrated at the symposium using various exemplary projects – ranging from experimental, small-scale residential schemes to an office tower for a bank.

Of particular importance in this regard is the newly introduced definition for zero-energy buildings, which within the context of EnEV and DIN V 18599 is intended to ensure a transparent and uniform interpretation of the political objectives. At the same time, it becomes equally clear that buildings only become zero-energy buildings if the overall energy infrastructure at the location is taken into account. At a larger scale, this also applies to climate-neutral urban districts or entire cities. In future, the buildings’ interaction with networks will become more of an issue than in the past, whereby this relates not only to the energy consumption but also the feeding of electricity and heat into these networks.