Energy Efficiency Council - Efficiency Providers | Energy Users | Australia

IEA EBC Annexes and Working Groups

IEA EBC research is mainly undertaken through a series of research projects, or so-called 'Annexes'. Typically each Annex has a life span of three to four years, although extensions are possible if a continuing need for the activity is identified. Clear goals are set for each activity so that well defined products are generated. Publications are available for several ongoing and most completed annexes.

Working Groups are unique from Annexes, and they are set up to be able to collect knowledge on specific aspects between several countries, prepare new Annex projects or to follow-up on a completed project.

Annexes and Working Groups are structured so that each has a defined Operating Agent(s) who is responsible for the management and reporting of sub-tasks, research and publication of outcomes. Sitting underneath the Operating Agents are the participants. Participants consist of all parties who support the Annex or Working Group, and to which sub-tasks are assigned. 

Through the Council's engagement with DISER and the IEA, we have selected a list of Annexes deemed particularly pertinent to Australia, and these are listed below (alongside Operating Agents and participants for each).

There are other ongoing Annexes, for further information on these, please click here.

You can also check out:

• IEA EBC participant profiles; and
• IEA EBC webinars and briefings.

IEA EBC Annexes and Working Groups of relevance to Australia

In this section you'll find information on:

• EBC Annex 87 – Energy and Indoor Environmental Quality Performance of Personalised Environmental Control Systems
• EBC Annex 86 – Energy Efficient Indoor Air Quality Management in Residential Buildings
• EBC Annex 85 – Indirect Evaporative Cooling
• EBC Annex 83 – Positive Energy Districts;
• EBC Annex 82 – Energy Flexible Buildings Towards Resilient Low Carbon Energy Systems
• EBC Annex 81 – Data-driven Smart Buildings;
• EBC Annex 80 – Resilient cooling;
• EBC Annex 79 – Occupant-Centric Building Design and Operation
• EBC Annex 73 – Towards Net Zero Energy Public Resilient Communities;
• EBC Annex 72 – Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings;
• EBC Annex 70 – Building Energy Epidemiology: Analysis of Real Building Energy Use at Scale;
• EBC Annex 69 – Strategy and Practice of Adaptive Thermal Comfort in Low Energy Buildings;
• EBC Annex 67 – Energy Flexible Buildings; and
• Working Group – Building Energy Codes.

 

EBC Annex 87 – Energy and Indoor Environmental Quality Performance of Personalised Environmental Control Systems

Status: Ongoing (2021 - 2026)

Operating Agents: Ongun Berk Kazanci and Bjarne Olesen 

Objectives:

The objective of this project is to establish design criteria and operation guidelines for 'personalised environmental control systems' (PECS) and to quantify the benefits regarding health, comfort and energy performance. This includes also control concepts and guidelines for operating PECS in spaces with general ambient systems for heating, cooling, ventilation, and lighting. The scope of the project includes all types of PECS for local heating, cooling, ventilation, air cleaning, lighting, and acoustics. It includes desktop systems, which are mounted on desks, or integrated into furniture, chairs with heating / cooling and ventilation, and other types that can be found during the study. It also includes wearables, where heating, cooling, and ventilation are included in garments or devices attached to an occupant's body.

Deliverables:

The main deliverables from the project are expected to be as follows:

• Guidebook on requirements for PECS;
• State-of-the-art report on PECS;
• Guidebook on PECS design, operation and implementation in buildings (including integration of PECS with ambient conditioning systems);
• Report on test methods for performance evaluation of PECS; and
• Universal criteria about requirements, characteristics, and performance of PECS to be used in national and international standards.

Want to get involved? You can contact the Annex Operating Agent here:

Ongun Berk Kazanci:

• E: Click here
• P: +45 45 25 40 16

Bjarne Olesen:

• E: Click here

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EBC Annex 86 - Energy Efficient Indoor Air Quality Management in Residential Buildings

Status: Ongoing (2020 - 2025)

Operating Agent: Dr Jelle Laverge

Objectives: 

• Select metrics to assess energy performance and indoor environmental quality of an indoor air quality management strategy and study their aggregation;
• Improve the acceptability, control, installation quality and long-term reliability of indoor air quality management strategies by proposing specific metrics for these quality issues;
• Set up a coherent rating method for indoor air quality management strategy that takes into account the selected metrics;
• Identify or further develop the tools that will be needed to assist designers and managers of buildings in assessing the performance of an indoor air quality management strategy using the rating method;
• Gather existing or provide new standardized input data for the rating method;
• Study the potential use of smart materials as (an integral part of) an indoor air quality management strategy;
• Develop specific indoor air quality management solutions for retrofitting existing buildings;
• Benefit from recent advances in sensor technology and cloud-based data storage to systematically improve the quality of the implemented indoor air quality management strategies, ensure their operation and improve the quality of the rating method as well as the input data;
• Improve the availability of these data sources by exploring use cases for their providers; and
• Disseminate about each of the above findings.

Deliverables:

The following official project deliverables are planned:

1. A literature list for energy efficient energy management;
2. An open database with source data for the rating of indoor air quality management strategies;
3. An overview report on methods and tools for the rating of indoor air quality management strategies; and
4. A collection of case studies and demonstrations of energy efficient indoor air quality management strategies.

Want to get involved? You can contact the Annex Operating Agent here:

Dr Jelle Laverge:

• E: Click here
• P: +32 9 264 37 49

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EBC Annex 85 - Indirect Evaporative Cooling

Status: Ongoing (2020 - 2025)

EBC Annex 83 – Positive Energy Districts

Pekka Tuominen:

• E: pekka.tuominen@vtt.fi
• P: +358 40 7345580

Francesco Reda:

• E: francesco.reda@vtt.fi
• P: +358 40 8403680

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EBC Annex 82 – Energy Flexible Buildings Towards Resilient Low Carbon Energy Systems

Søren Østergaard Jensen:

• E: sdj@teknologisk.dk
• P: +45 72 20 24 883

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EBC Annex 81 – Data-driven Smart Buildings

• E: stephen.d.white@csiro.au
  
• P: +61 2 4960 6070

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EBC Annex 80 – Resilient cooling

Status: Ongoing (2018-2023)

Operating agent:

• Dr Peter Holzer, IBRI, Austria

Australian participants:

• Paul Cooper, University of Wollongong
• Peter Graham, GBPN
• Lu Aye, University of Melbourne
• PC Thomas, Team Catalyst
• Wendy Miller, QUT

Annex overview

Resilient cooling is used to denote low energy and low carbon cooling solutions that strengthen the ability of individuals - and our community as a whole - to withstand and prevent the thermal (and other) impacts of changes in global and local climates, particularly with respect to increasing ambient temperatures and the increasing frequency and severity of heat waves.

According to this definition, resilient cooling includes technologies and solutions that:

• Reduce externally induced heat gains to indoor environments;
• Offer personal comfort apart from space cooling;
• Remove heat from indoor environments; and
• Control the humidity of indoor environments.

The project is investigating resilient cooling applications against a variety of external parameters such as climate, building typologies, internal loads and occupancy profiles, various levels of BMS capabilities and automation, new buildings and retrofitting of existing buildings. Furthermore, the project is closely connected with activities such as Mission Innovation’s Challenge #7: Affordable Heating and Cooling of Buildings, the Kigali Cooling Efficiency Programme and the IEA Global Exchange on Efficiency: Cooling.

Objectives

1. Assess benefits, potentials and performance indicators;
2. Identify limitations and bottlenecks and provide guidance on design, performance calculation and system integration;
3. Research towards implementation of emerging technologies;
4. Extend boundaries of existing solutions, including user interaction and control strategies;
5. Demonstrate the performance of resilient cooling solutions; and
6. Develop recommendations for regulatory contexts.

Activities

The identified set of deliverables to be achieved by participants for this project includes:

• Comprehensive resilient cooling technology profiles including instructions for successful system design, implementation and operation;
• Specific resilient cooling R&D reports;
• Well documented case studies and success stories; and
• Recommendations for the integration of resilient cooling in legislation and standards.

Want to get involved? You can contact the Annex operating agent here:

Dr. Peter Holzer

• E: peter.holzer@building-research.at
• P: +43 1 5811319 801

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EBC Annex 79 – Occupant-Centric Building Design and Operation

Status: Ongoing (2018 - 2023)

Operating agents:

• Dr Liam O’Brien, Carleton University, Canada
• Andreas Wagner, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany

Australian participants:

• CSIRO
  • Dr Dong Chen
• Deakin University
  • Dr Abdul-Manan Sadick
  • Amir Tabadkani
  • Dr Astrid Roetzel
  • Dr Hong Xian (Lily) Li
  • Sogol Khoshroonejad
  • Vanessa Whittem
• Monash University
  • Dr Jenny Zhou
• RMIT
  • Dr Flora Salim
  • Dr Mohammad Saiedur Rahaman
• University of Melbourne
  • Dr Masa Noguchi

ANNEX OVERVIEW

Previous research (for example resulting from EBC Annex 53) has identified the strong influence of occupants on building performance. Recently, EBC Annex 66 has provided a sound framework for experimentally studying and modelling  different behavioural actions, including the implementation of these models into simulation platforms. But, real operation of buildings shows that many such models do not represent the manifold human interactions with a building appropriately enough, and that there is no guidance for designers and building managers on how to apply occupant behaviour models in everyday practice. The purpose of this project is to provide new insights into comfort-related occupant  behaviour in buildings and its impact on building energy performance. An open collaboration platform for data and software is being created to support the use of ‘big data’ methods and advanced occupant behaviour models. It is further promoting the application of this knowledge in building design and operation processes by assisting decision making and by supporting practitioners. 

OBJECTIVES

The project objectives are to:

• Develop new scientific knowledge about adaptive occupant actions driven by multiple interdependent indoor environmental parameters;
• Understand interactions between occupants and building systems;
• Deploy ‘big data’ (e.g. data mining and machine learning) for the building sector based on various sources of building and occupant data as well as sensing technologies;
• Develop methods and guidelines and preparing standards for integrating occupant models in building design and operation; and
• Create focused case studies to test the new methods and models in different design and operation phases.

ACTIVITIES

The planned outcomes from the project are as follows:

• Enhanced scientific knowledge about comfort-driven occupant interactions with building technologies. This includes methodological approaches to examine multistressor effects by environmental influences on human subjects;
• Informed insight into the potential of various data sources and sensing technologies, as well as applications of data-based methods for knowledge discovery and modelling of occupant behaviour;
• An open collaboration platform for data and software for supporting the use of data-mining methods and tools for applications within the area of occupant behaviour;
• A repository of advanced occupant behaviour models for digital planning environments;
• Proposals for standards and policy support for implementing occupant behaviour simulation in building design and operation practice. This also includes the integration of the models in modern digital planning (BIM) environments; and
• Guidelines on how to apply occupant models and occupant behaviour issues within building technologies, including user interfaces, as part of everyday design and planning processes.

Want to get involved? You can contact the Annex operating agents here:

Liam O’Brien

• E:  Click here 

Andreas Wagner

• E:  Click here

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EBC Annex 73 – Towards Net Zero Energy Public Resilient Communities

Status: Ongoing, 2017-2022

Operating agents:

• Rüdiger Lohse, KEA Klimaschutz- und Energieagentur Baden-Württemberg GmbH, Germany
• Dr Alexander Zhivov, Energy Branch US Army Corps of Engineers, USA

Australian participants:

• Greg Foliente, University of Melbourne
• Behzad Rismanchi, University of Melbourne

Annex overview

Until recently, most planners of public communities - for example military and university campuses - have addressed energy systems for new facilities on an individual building basis without consideration of energy sources, renewables, storage, or future energy generation needs.

This situation in planning and execution of energy related projects does not support attainment of current energy reduction goals or the minimisation of costs for providing energy security.

The project is summarising the state-of-the-art technologies and concepts for community-wide ‘near zero energy’ master planning that consider both power and heating and cooling needs. The project also aims to enhance existing master planning strategies and modelling tools and expand their application by adding standardised country-explicit building data on specific building types, information on advanced energy efficiency technologies, and on their performance and cost characteristics.

The scope of the project is to develop the methodology and the decision-making process that will be transferred into computer-based modelling tools for achieving near-zero energy in public communities like military garrisons, universities and housing areas. The guidelines and tools to be developed within the project will support the energy master planning process and will address technical, economic, social, financial, and business components presented in the way that is easy to understand and execute. The outcomes will be applicable to public communities in participating countries.

Objectives

1. Establishing energy goals and a database of energy utilisation indices for representative buildings and building communities;
2. Developing a catalogue of building models, including mixed-use buildings, applicable to national public and private communities and military garrisons;
3. Collecting and analysing best practices of energy master planning with the goal of establishing a step-by-step energy master planning process to be executed using the computerised tool;
4. Collecting information on the architecture of advanced central energy systems, analysing their applicability to different building communities’ needs and constraints, and evaluating these scenarios from the technical, economic, financial, and business perspective; and
5. Dissemination and training in participating countries designed for decision makers, planners, building owners, architects, engineers, and energy managers of public owned and operated communities.

Activities

The identified set of deliverables to be achieved by participants for this project includes:

• A guide for near zero energy planning in building communities;
• An enhanced net zero planning tool;
• A book of case studies with examples of energy masterplans and near zero energy communities; and
• A report summarising the results of several realised pilot case study projects.

Want to get involved? You can contact the Annex operating agents here:

Rüdiger Lohse

• E: ruediger.lohse@kea-bw.de
• P: +49 (0)721 984 71 15

Dr Alexander Zhivov

• E: alexander.m.zhivov@erdc.usace.army.mil
• P: +1 217 373 4519

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EBC Annex 72 – Assessing Life Cycle Related Environmental Impacts Caused by Buildings

Status: Ongoing (2016 - 2022)

Operating agent:

• Dr Rolf Frischknecht, ETH Zurich, Switzerland

Australian participants:

• Greg Foliente, University of Melbourne
• Wendy Miller, Queensland University of Technology

ANNEX OVERVIEW

The project is advancing the research already conducted within EBC Annexes 56 and 57. It broadens the scope of Annex 57 by including operational impacts of buildings in use and by addressing environmental impacts in addition to primary energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. It is the intention to cover residential, office and school buildings, hospitals and other public buildings, both new and retrofit. The overall goal is to support planning processes and decision making related to new buildings and retrofit of existing buildings to reduce the primary energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts along the entire life cycle of buildings.

The project is researching harmonization issues arising when applying life cycle assessment (LCA) approaches on buildings. It functions as a platform to exchange experiences and knowledge within partner countries and to foster the application of LCA on buildings in countries with yet little experience.

OBJECTIVES

The project objectives are:

• Establish a common methodology guideline to assess the life cycle based primary energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts caused by buildings;
• Establish methods for the development of specific environmental benchmarks for different types of buildings;
• Derive regionally differentiated guidelines and tools for building design and planning such as BIM for architects and planners;
• Establish a number of case studies, focused to allow for answering some of the research issues and for deriving empirical benchmarks;
• Develop national or regional databases with regionally differentiated life cycle assessment data tailored to the construction sector; and
• Share experiences with the setup and update of such databases.

ACTIVITIES

The planned deliverables from this project are:

• Harmonised guidelines on the environmental life cycle assessment of buildings;
• Establishing environmental benchmarks for buildings (basics, methods, examples);
• National LCA databases used in the construction sector, including standardised characterisation of all relevant LCA databases;
• Guidelines for planners on how to optimise the life cycle performance of buildings during the design process using planning tools such as BIM;
• Building case studies using a standardised template;
• How to establish national or regional LCA databases targeted to the construction sector;and
• Default publicly available, national data sets of LCA-based environmental indicators.

 

Want to get involved? You can contact the Annex operating agents here:

Dr Rolf Frischknecht

• E:  Click here

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EBC Annex 70 – Building Energy Epidemiology: Analysis of Real Building Energy Use at Scale

Status: Ongoing (2016-2022)

Operating agent:

• Dr. Ian Hamilton, Energy Institute, UK

Australian participants:

• University of Wollongong
  • Paul Cooper
  • Daniel Daly
  • Pascal Perez
• University of New South Wales
  • Deo Prasad
  • Stephen Summerhayes

Annex overview

In response to concerns about climate change, energy security and social equity, governments around the world are developing plans to dramatically reduce energy demand and carbon dioxide emissions, - or in the case of emerging economies - develop in less energy intensive ways. This transformation will require a raft of technology and policy interventions that, to be truly effective, will require comprehensive empirical evaluation.

This project specifically seeks to support decision-makers and investors in their efforts to transform to a low carbon and energy efficient building stock. This is to be achieved by focusing on developing best practice methods for collecting, accessing, analysing and developing models with empirical data of energy demand in buildings and communities.

^{Idealised operation of a national building data and stock model. Source: EBC Annex 70.}

Building energy epidemiology is the study of energy demand to improve the understanding of variations and causes of differences within an energy-consuming population. It considers the complex interactions between the physical and engineered systems, socioeconomic conditions, in addition to individual interactions and practices of occupants. The results will facilitate the use of empirical data in undertaking international energy performance comparisons, policy review exercises, national stock modelling and technology and product market assessments and impact analyses.

Objectives

1. Evaluating the scope for using real building energy use data at scale to inform policy making and to support industry in the development of low energy and low carbon solutions;
2. Establishing best practice in the methods used to collect and analyse data related to real building energy use, including building and occupant data; and
3. Comparing across the national approaches to developing building stock data sets, building stock models, and to addressing the energy performance gap in order to identify lessons that can be learned and shared.

Activities

The identified set of deliverables to be achieved by participants for this project includes:

• A registry on national building stock surveys and models (with actual data if available); and
• A series of best practice and information reports on international data, models and methods.

This Annex is close to maturity, but you can still contact the Annex operating agent if you would like to learn more:

Dr. Ian Hamilton

• E: i.hamilton@ucl.ac.uk

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EBC Annex 69 – Strategy and Practice of Adaptive Thermal Comfort in Low Energy Buildings

Status: Ongoing (2014-2022)

Operating agents:

• Prof. Richard de Dear, University of Sydney, Australia
• Prof. Yingxin Zhu, Tsinghua University, China

Australian participants:

• Paul Cooper, University of Wollongong
• Dr Jungsoo Kim, University of Sydney

Annex overview

Reducing energy use and providing comfortable indoor environments for occupants are both key objectives of the building sector globally. However, establishing the appropriate balance between these competing issues is challenging. Is it possible to achieve thermal comfort in buildings without increasing energy use? To answer this, this project is focusing on:

• Creating a scientifically based explanation of the underlying mechanism of adaptive thermal comfort for people in buildings; and
• The application and evaluation of the thermal adaptation concept to reduce building energy consumption through design and control strategies.

^{Source: Rawal et. al, 2020, Personal comfort systems: A review on comfort, energy, and economics, Energy and Buildings, Vol. 214, DOI: 109858.}

The concept of adaptive thermal comfort is not new, but there are still existing problems to be solved in this field of research:

• Although the adaptive effect has been observed by many researchers, the mechanism of the adaptive process is still unclear, especially the psychological and behavioural influences;
• The thermal adaptation responses of people in diverse climatic regions can be quite different, which may result in different building design strategies and indoor environment solutions. Current understanding of occupants’ adaptive responses in different climate regions is still limited; and
• Apart from purely free-running buildings or airconditioned buildings, mixed-mode buildings (cooling / heating together with natural ventilation) are actually the most common type. However, in existing standards there are no evaluation criteria for this kind of building. Most clients refuse to accept low energy building design with an indoor thermal environment outside the comfort range defined in current standards.

Objectives

1. Establish a database with quantitative descriptions of occupant thermal adaption responses;
2. Develop new or improved indoor thermal environment criteria based on the adaptive thermal comfort concept;
3. Provide a basis for the creation or revision of indoor environment standards;
4. Propose passive building design strategies to achieve thermal comfort with low energy consumption; and
5. Provide guidelines for new cooling and heating devices based on perceived / individual control adaptation.

Activities

The identified set of deliverables to be achieved by participants for this project includes:

• Database with a user interface including information about human thermal reactions, together with occupant behaviour and building energy consumption;
• Model and criteria for the application of adaptive thermal comfort in buildings;
• Guidelines for low energy building design based on the adaptive thermal comfort concept; and
• Guidelines for personal thermal comfort systems in low energy buildings.

Outcomes

You can find a full list of Annex 69 publications here.

This Annex is close to maturity, but you can still contact the Annex operating agents if you would like to learn more:

Prof. Yingxin Zhu

• E: zhuyx@tsinghua.edu.cn

Prof. Richard de Dear

• E: richard.dedear@sydney.edu.au

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EBC Annex 67 - Energy Flexible Buildings

Status: Completed (2014-2020)

Operating agent:

• Søren Østergaard Jensen

Annex overview

Energy flexibility in buildings will play an important role in facilitating energy systems based entirely on renewable energy sources. Flexibility is necessary to control the energy use to match the actual energy generation from various energy sources such as solar and wind power. However, before this project there was a lack of comprehensive knowledge about how much energy flexibility different building types and their usage may be able to offer to the future energy systems.

This project has demonstrated how energy flexibility in buildings can provide generating capacity for energy grids, and has identifed critical aspects and possible solutions to manage such flexibility. This knowledge is important in order to incorporate energy flexibility of buildings into future smart energy systems and to better accommodate renewable sources in energy systems. It is also important when developing the business case for using building energy flexibility within future systems to potentially reduce costly upgrades of energy distribution grids.

Objectives

• development of common terminology, a definition of ‘energy flexibility in buildings’ and a classification method,
• investigation of user comfort, motivation and acceptance associated with the introduction of energy flexibility in buildings,
• investigation of the energy flexibility potential in different buildings and contexts, and development of design guidelines, control strategies and algorithms
• investigation of the aggregated energy flexibility of buildings and the potential effect on energy grids, and
• demonstration of energy flexibility through experimental and field studies.

Outcomes

You can find a full list of Annex 67 publications here.

A number of areas where further work is needed to ensure that energy flexibility from buildings will actually be an asset for future energy networks were identified and are the basis of Annex 82.

If you would like to learn more, you can contact the Operating agent here:

Søren Østergaard Jensen

Phone: +45 72202488
E-mail: sdj@teknologisk.dk

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Working Group – Building Energy Codes

Status: Ongoing (2019-2022)

Operating agents:

• David Nemtzow, US Department of Energy, USA
• Michael Donn, Victoria University, New Zealand

Australian participant:

• Stanford Harrison, Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources

Working Group overview

It is widely recognised that building energy codes (also known as building energy standards) are an effective policy tool for improving the energy efficiency of buildings, residential and commercial alike. However, even in communities and other jurisdictions with extensive history in this area, building energy codes are facing key issues, including:

• A need for faster and easier methods to check the compliance of buildings with the code;
• A need for greater reliability in the evaluation of code compliance;
• The substantial amount of time it takes for building codes to integrate research and technology breakthroughs, limiting the energy savings potential of building energy codes;
• The long-life of buildings and thus attending to the resulting challenge of incorporating energy efficiency into major retrofits of older buildings and the role of buildings energy codes in this;
• The need to meet ambitious policy objectives including zero net energy construction standards, passive ventilation, etc,; and
• The challenge of integrating various distributed energy resources including distributed solar, electric vehicles, and grid-interactive and flexible technologies.

In June 2019, the IEA EBC approved the creation of a Working Group (WG) dedicated to the consideration of building energy codes to foster stronger collaboration addressed at these issues.

Objectives

• To enhance the understanding of impactful options and practices regarding building energy codes across different countries;
• To provide methods for cross-national comparison that lead to meaningful information sharing; and
• To foster collaboration on building energy code issues that leads to enhanced building energy code programs by incorporating new issues and practices.

Outcomes

The draft work plan for this WG can be found here.

The first newsletter from this WG can be found here.

If you would like to learn more, you can contact the Working Group operating agents here:

David Nemtzow

• E: david.nemtzow@ee.doe.gov

Michael Donn

• E: michael.donn@vuw.ac.nz

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