Energy improvement of office buildings in Southern Europe

This paper highlights the potential of adapting the energy profile of conventional office buildings in Southern Europe into a profile of Balanced Energy Buildings. The proposed energy adaptation does not only aim to satisfy the electricity consumption on an overall annual basis using intermittent renewable energy sources (RES), but seeks for a better instantaneous match of the on-site demand of the building with the production from RES. The self-consumption of locally generated clean electricity shall be maximized and peaks in energy transactions between building and grid are to be reduced. The aforementioned targets are pursued with the utilisation of intermittent RES (mainly solar PV systems in Southern Europe), active energy-saving techniques supported by ICT (Information & Communication Technology) technologies and energy storage systems. Beyond this, attention is given to the indoor climate comfort.