Belgium And Ireland: Barriers Of Innovative Affordable and Zero Energy Dwellings
Introduction:
Despite efforts to promote and accelerate the adoption of innovative affordable and zero energy dwellings solution, the number of dwellings complying with standards such as the EPBD remains relatively low as we reach the year 2020. Studies have already explored potential challenges and opportunities to the uptake of such designs. However, despite previous findings and recommendations, the market’s response remains slow.
Building on existing knowledge and as part of the Housing 4.0 Energy project, this study investigates current financial, cultural, legislative, and technical barriers and drivers to the implementation and uptake of small, innovative affordable zero-energy dwellings in small towns in Belgium and Ireland. Focus groups gathering housing providers, decision-makers, stakeholders, and contractors were conducted in Leuven and Kilkenny. Outcomes revealed that participants’ general perceptions around barriers and drivers are similar between the two countries and are validated by previous research findings.
Barriers Of Innovative Affordable and Zero Energy Dwellings:
One way of evaluating market potential and innovative affordable and zero energy dwellings to investigate existing or potential institutional, technical, financial, and social barriers and drivers challenging or inhibiting their successful uptake. To that aim, several studies explored challenges from various perspectives covering the different sectors involved in the process of housing provision. Despite different research time, location, scope and methods, the studies reach similar outcomes. For instance, in 2011, a study about low-carbon housing refurbishments from architects’ point of view concluded that drivers promoting energy efficient housing are insufficient.
The same conclusion was reached in 2012 through a study investigating energy-efficient housing from a policy perspective and in 2015 through a study evaluating the construction industry’s perspective regarding zero-carbon homes. Moreover, throughout these studies, a recurrent distinction is made separating financial, cultural, legislative and technical barriers and drivers to the uptake innovative energy-efficient dwellings and designs. Accordingly, the following four sections summarize the common barriers and drivers found throughout the literature.
Financial barriers and drivers:
Despite potentially lower operational and lifecycle costs, one of the most common perceived barriers to the application of innovative energy efficiency measures within the housing sector is higher initial costs. Long payback periods and continuously increasing real estate prices also challenge the willingness to pay high initial costs although when it comes to property values, the literature reveals conflicting conclusions. Some deduce that having energy-efficient housing potentially increases the value of a property and leads to higher rents or sales prices; however, others argue that this does not make up for the rapid and continuously increasing rate of real estate prices within the housing market.
Cultural barriers and drivers:
A common perceived barrier is people’s level of awareness when it comes to the need and the urgency of having an energy-neutral dwelling as well as their lack of knowledge of its various benefits. This leads to a lack of engagement or sense of commitment from users vis-a-vis their dwellings. People’s habits also play an important role in challenging the adoption and successful use of new technologies.
Legislative barriers and drivers:
The lack of a policy and regulatory framework supporting innovative zero-energy housing designs was revealed as one of the main legislative barriers to their successful uptake. Literature also recognizes a lack of cooperation between the different policy departments covering energy efficiency and housing and a lack of clarity specifically in building regulations related to energy efficiency innovations.
Technical barriers and drivers:
General shortage of skills in both design and construction was revealed to be a significant common barrier. It was identified as a lack of knowledge and awareness during the design phase and as a lack of skilled workers with sufficient technical experience to properly handle or install innovative technologies on site. Contractors’ acquired experience was identified as a main selection criterion in the process of adopting innovative housebuilding systems thus underlining the potential impact this barrier could have on future upscaling.
Knowledge gap:
The literature reviewed in this study on challenges and opportunities reveals that there is a dominance of barriers over drivers. It also highlights that there is a considerable number of similar outcomes despite the different research scopes, perspectives, and methods. This indicates that the stated challenges are perceived by most professionals involved in the housing sector and that they apply to potentially all types of innovative energy efficiency measures whether it is low-carbon refurbishments, prefabrication or net zero-energy new build dwellings. More importantly, these outcomes also persisted through time. This can be interpreted as a validation of the established research conclusions, but it can also underline a certain limitation.
Conclusion:
This paper explores the barriers and drivers to a successful implementation and uptake of innovative affordable and zero energy dwellings from the perspective of various housing actors in two countries: Belgium and Ireland. On the one hand, the outcomes of this explorative study echo previous research findings despite the different time frames, objects of study, research scopes, and perspectives which implies validation. On the other hand, adopting a qualitative methodological approach through the conduction of focus groups allowed an in-depth investigation of context specific challenges revealing the peculiarities within each country.
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