Assessing the Energy Performance of Office Buildings

The production and use of energy are the cause for the 94% of CO2emissions, with an important share, at least 45%, corresponding at the building sector. Buildings are accounting for the 40% of energy consumption in Europe, while the increase of demand of electric energy is forecasted to reach up to 42% at 2020. Greek buildings absorb roughly the 1/3 of consumed energy and emit the 45% of CO2. Particularly, the tertiary sector represents roughly the 25% of total number of Greek buildings. The category of offices/commercial buildings constitutes the higher percentage between the main categories of tertiary sector and it represents the 2.74% of total building reserve, that corresponds at a total energy consumption equal to 339 kWh/m2. In this paper, the energy behaviour of public buildings is studied. The energy situation of public office buildings in the prefecture of Florina, in North Greece is investigated. The paper demonstrates the energy assessment of office buildings and it formulates proposals for the improvement of their energy efficiency. The evaluation of the existing energy situation and the proposed energy interventions was performed with the EPA-NR software, The parameters that were taken into account were the constructional data of the buildings, the data on the operation of the buildings, energy consumption and the exterior climatic local conditions. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011.