Transformation paths for energy supply: What impact will future emission factors have on the life cycle emissions of buildings?
Last week, our colleague Jana Deurer Oppen attended the “Energy Consulting Thuringia 2025” symposium in Jena, hosted by the Jena-Thuringia Climate Protection Foundation. The event provided experts from the fields of planning, consulting, engineering, and politics with a forum to discuss current developments in energy and climate policy.
In her presentation, Jana Deurer Oppen introduced IREES’s current work on the further development of the Quality Seal for Sustainable Buildings (QNG). The focus was on how the transformation paths of different energy sources affect the greenhouse gas emissions of buildings. Against this background, the methodology for developing transformation paths for electricity, district heating, and gas, as well as various options for consideration in the QNG, were presented. Finally, the impact of considering transformation paths on the QNG assessment was demonstrated.
The findings at a glance:
– The QNG and GEG take static emission factors into account, although in reality these develop dynamically;
– In the future, the share of renewable energies is expected to continue to rise, thereby increasing the deviation from the current static methodology;-Based on current studies, the transformation paths developed show that the emission factors of emission carriers are falling rapidly.
– By taking transformation paths into account in the form of rolling averages, operational greenhouse gas emissions are reduced in all variants considered – in both new and existing buildings.
– However, building-related emissions remain unchanged over the period considered, which should necessarily result in the requirement values being adjusted accordingly.
– The QNG requirement values, which have so far been determined primarily by the operating phase, should therefore take greater account of building-related emissions in future developments.
IREES-RESEARCH FOR FUTURE 🌍🍃
