Copenhagen is the capital of Denmark, but it is also the capital of green building. A United Nations building in the city has 1400 solar panels and an air conditioning system that uses seawater. Energy performance of this type of building, have nothing to do with what was there just 20 years.
In the European Union, the building sector is among the most energy intensive sectors. It represents 40% of total energy consumption, while exceeding two transport sectors and industry. Therefore, the needs to achieve energy savings in the building are a major economic and environmental issue. Houses based consumption, called passive, are already thousands in northern Europe, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden… and have already proven that technical solutions exist.This achieves a very low consumption in these buildings, approximately 50 KWh/m² a year, or eight times less (450 KWh/m²) than a classic average building dating of 1970s. A positive energy building is still better, it is a building that produces more energy than it consumes for its operation.This is possible thanks to a local energy production with means of abstraction or productions like photo voltaic collectors, solar heat, wind turbines, heat popes buried in the ground …
The positive energy buildings are becoming more innovative and more numerous, though still too rare. It is mainly offices, a third of individual houses and the rest of the collective housing. (suite…)