Technical building standards and energy use in non- residential buildings

Building standards have changed over time. As a result, the current stock of buildings is built under different TEK standards. Statistics of current energy consumption in commercial buildings, see Rapporter 62/2013, Statistisk sentralbyrå, shows that non-residential buildings built in the 90s have clearly higher energy consumption per m2 than buildings built before and later. This applies both for office buildings, schools and also partly commercial buildings. The question is what factors cause this pattern, do we see any effects of changes in building codes or other energy policies for development in energy use, and what are the major drivers of changes in energy consumption?

In this project we aim to understand the main drivers for energy consumption in non-residential buildings, and how technical standards affect the buildings’ energy performance.