A bottom-up harmonized energy-environmental models for europe (BOHEEME): A case study on the thermal insulation of the EU-28 building stock

The paper presents a methodological approach, called “BOttom-up Harmonized Energy-Environmental Models for Europe” (BOHEEME), that combines bottom-up modeling, energy dynamic simulation, and life cycle assessment for evaluating and comparing the energy and environmental effects of different renovation strategies of the residential EU building stocks, from micro to the macro level. The study defines 672 building models representative of the residential EU-28 building stocks built before 2010, called archetypes, and the improvement of their envelope, applying different insulation materials from a traditional one to bio-based materials and studying their environmental effects via LCA. The results show that the only improvement of the vertical envelope could reduce the environmental impacts on the residential sector operation of about 6–19% in all the environmental impact categories accounted. Moreover, it could reduce in 2050 about 20% of the CO2eq emission due to the heating and cooling demand and about 13% of the climate change impacts connected to the EU residential energy consumption. The approach and the models proposed could be used for future improvement strategies of all the European residential building stocks, allowing stakeholders, policy-makers, and agencies for identifying the best renovation action.