State-of-the-art Review : Vol. 1. State-of-the-art Report: NNEX 44 : Integrating Environmentally Responsive Elements in Buildings

Energy use for room heating, cooling and ventilation accounts for more than one third of the total, primary energy demand in the industrialised countries, and is in this way a major polluter of the environment. To successfully achieve the targets set out in the Kyoto protocols it is necessary to identify innovative energy technologies and solutions for the medium and long term which facilitates the implementation and integration of low carbon technologies, such as renewable energy devices, within the built environment. Deployment of low carbon technologies still faces major barriers in the built environment especially in relation to costs, building logistics, technological challenges, lack of understanding and knowledge and absence of requisite skills. Research into building energy efficiency over the last decades has focused on efficiency improvements of specific building elements like the building envelope, including its walls, roofs and fenestration components (windows, daylighting, ventilation, etc.) and building equipment such as heating, ventilation, cooling equipment and lighting. Significant improvement have been made, and most building elements still offer opportunities for efficiency improvements.

This report gives a summary of the information gathered in the state-of-the-art stage of the IEA-project. The full information reports for responsive building elements and integrated building concepts are also available at the project website.