The next version of the EU Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD) has been provisionally agreed – including proposals for zero emission buildings, building renovation passports, a phase out of fossil fuel boilers and the introduction of whole life carbon calculation for buildings.
Tipperary Energy Agency has secured significant new EU funding to further the development of its domestic retrofit programme, SuperHomes Ireland. The latest version of the scheme, dubbed ‘SuperHomes 2030’, is supported by the EU Horizon 2020 programme. The new programme will run for three years.
The combined floor area of certified passive buildings worldwide has reached the one million metre mark with the certification of a retrofit project in Santa Cruz, California.
Dublin’s old city wall in Woodquay provided the backdrop on Wednesday 15 October to a conference, titled 'Better Than Best Practice', on the urgent need to upskill the Irish construction industry.
Nearly a third of construction professionals did not know about the nearly-zero energy requirement for all new buildings by the year 2020, according to a survey of Passive House Plus readers.
Environmental groups have criticised the EU's new Energy Efficiency Directive for failing to mandate member states to make big energy savings over the next decade.
According to the European Commission, the plan will deliver 20% energy savings across the union by 2020. However, Friends of the Earth said the directive would "not make savings to the extent promised, or on the scale needed to fight climate change".
Energy minister Eamon Ryan has announced that the government plans to recoup some of the profits big electricity generators have made through the EU's emissions trading scheme.