Energy requirements for Norwegian commercial buildings : an assessment of the major social costs and benefits associated with stricter energy requirements in the technical building regulation

摘要

The focus of this thesis is the energy requirements in the Norwegian technical BuildingRegulation. In 2015, these energy requirements are expected to be tightened. The purpose ofthis thesis is to evaluate whether this planned tightening of the energy requirements is likelyto be positive for the society as a whole. This will be the case if the increased social benefitsassociated with the stricter energy requirements exceed the increased social costs related tothese requirements. In order to evaluate whether this will be the case, a cost-benefit analysiswas conducted. In this cost-benefit analysis, some of the major costs and benefits associatedwith the tightening of the energy requirements were assessed. The energy requirements inTEK10 represented the current requirements, and the energy requirements in the PassiveHouse Standard represented the stricter energy requirements. Hence, the costs and benefitsassociated with a building that meets the energy requirements in TEK10 and a building withthe Passive House Standard were estimated and compared. This was done for four differentbuilding types; a sports building, a kindergarten, a school building, and an office building. Inorder to evaluate whether the tightening of the energy requirements is likely to be positive forthe society as a whole, the net social benefits were calculated for each building type. Thesenet social benefits were then discounted in order to find the net present value. The net presentvalue turned out to be positive for all building types. It is therefore expected that the increasedbenefits associated with stricter energy requirements will exceed the increased costs. Hence,the tightening of the energy requirements is expected to be positive for the society as a whole.A tightening of the energy requirements in the Technical Building Regulation can thereforebe recommended.