Integrated approach for school buildings rehabilitation in a Portuguese city and analysis of suitable third party financing solutions in EU

• Integrated approach for school building rehabilitation.
• 5 Energy retrofit scenarios were studied with different cost-effectiveness targets.
• Energy retrofit scenarios compatible with European available financial mechanisms.
• Service life presents an important effect in LCC.
• Results show it is possible to reduce the electric energy consumptions up to 40%.

In this paper we present an integrated approach for building rehabilitation on a group of buildings of a primary school located in the southern suburbs of Lisbon – Moita, Portugal. The approach includes taking into account collected data concerning the actual energy consumption for: space heating; occupants' behavior, technical and architectural characteristics of the buildings. Detailed energy auditing was done to the buildings including interviews to pupils and teachers to understand occupants' behavior, construction materials used, energy consumption and lighting. Thermal images of the interior zones were generated to provide information about the temperature distribution and a notion about air or heat leak from or into the building. Based on the obtained data, 5 different energy retrofit scenarios were studied with different performance and cost-effectiveness targets, compatible with some European available financial mechanisms to promote energy retrofit of buildings. Life cycle cost analyses (LCC) should be taken into account to minimize environmental impact and some recommendations were suggested. Each scenario service life’ presents an important effect in LCC. It is found that implementing those measures can cost-effectively reduce the annual energy use by 40% compared to the original building design.