Effective and robust energy retrofitting measures for future climatic conditions—Reduced heating demand of Swedish households

• Nine energy retrofitting measures and four combinations of them are assessed.
• Five climate scenarios with different global climate models are used.
• Efficiency and robustness of the retrofitting measures are compared.
• Climate uncertainties and variations in different time scales are considered.
• Consistency of the developed statistical technique is examined.

This article quantifies the energy saving potential and robustness of nine energy retrofitting measures, as well as four combinations of these, for residential building stocks of three major cities in Sweden and for five scenarios of future climatic conditions, downscaled by a regional climate model (RCM). The retrofitting measures are evaluated for five temporal resolutions of hourly, daily, monthly, annual and 20-years during the period of 1961 through 2100. The evaluation takes into account a very important uncertainty factor of future climate data, induced by different global climate models (GCMs). The application of a statistical method for assessing the retrofitting measures is being evaluated.Results verify the consistency and reliability of the comparative assessment and confirm the possibility of assessing the retrofitting measures without the need for long-term simulations and considering climate uncertainties. Among the considered retrofitting measures, a combination of an improved thermal insulation of the building envelope with energy efficient windows is the most effective and robust retrofitting measure, while tuning the indoor set-point temperature to 20 °C can also contribute to significant energy savings.