A new energy indicator for life cycle analysis of buildings

To achieve a sustainable management of resources, political and economic decision makers need indicators to quantify their technical choice in relation with resource consumption. In this study, an indicator that reflects power demand next to energy demand of system like buildings is developed. This new power indicator is applied to residential houses. It can highlight the dependence to high power energy sources that exists at the different steps of the life cycle of a building. This dependence is presented as a better indicator of sustainability than a traditional energy account as it reflects the ability for the system to rely on flow energies rather than on stock energies.