For four years, international experts from all over the world have been working together in the framework of IEA EBC Annex 58 on the topic of ‘Reliable building energy performance characterization based on full scale dynamic measurements’. This project took place in the framework of the ‘Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme’ of the International Energy Agency.  Since parts of the project build on previous PASLINK research, a close link was made with the Dynastee network and an update of the Annex 58 work was regularly provided in previous Dynastee-newsletters, as it is in this current one.

The last expert meeting in Prague (Spring 2015) officially closed the working phase of the project. Ever since, subtask leaders and participants have been working very hard to collect and describe all work done within Annex 58 in different reports, which are currently under review. Spring 2016 this outcome of Annex 58 will be presented to a broader audience. It contains:

• A report on the state of the art on full scale testing and dynamic data analysis, including a survey of existing full scale test facilities
• A decision tree to guide people in choosing the correct (full scale dynamic) test and method to characterize a certain performance
• A report describing the methodology to perform dynamic data analysis and performance characterization, and practical guidelines based on the lessons learned from the Common Exercises
• A few well-documented dynamic data sets (available as electronic data) which can be used for developing dynamic data analysis procedures and for validation purpose with corresponding document describing the outcome of the validation exercises of this Annex-project
• A synthesis report, demonstrating the applications of the developed framework

And what after IEA EBC Annex 58?

Several research groups have indicated that they do not want to lose the momentum and good collaboration of the project. Furthermore, although a lot of progress has been made within IEA EBC Annex 58, several challenges remain. Annex 58 made a first step to characterize the actual energy performance of buildings based on full scale dynamic measurements. The focus, however, was mainly restricted to the thermal performance of the building envelope, making use of rather intrusive tests and focusing on scale models or test buildings. At the last IEA EBC ExCo-meeting a concept for a new research project has been presented. This project aims to make the step towards real in use buildings to pave the way for quality checks in daily building construction practice to guarantee that designed performances are obtained on site.

The main objectives of the new project are:

• Support the development of replicable methodologies to in situ assess energy performances of buildings in use
• Disaggregate the energy performance to the three main sources: building, systems and users

In Spring 2016 a workshop will be organized to fine-tune the project proposal, so the good work of Annex 58 can hopefully be continued in a new IEA  EBC-project starting from September 2016 on.

Further information about IEA EBC Annex 58 can be found at www.ecbcs.org/annexes/annex58.htm