Ecological Building Retrofit Conference 2005
AEE INTEC, the City of Weiz and the W.E.I.Z. hosted the international conference “Ecological building retrofit” with support of the EU-Program “Intelligent Energy Europe”, in the Weizer Kunsthaus from October 13th to 15th 2005. More than 460 experts in the field of construction and decision makers from 12 countries visited the conference.
During the three days, the participants of the conference were informed about present national and local activities in Austria and the latest technical development. Further, an excursion with visits to low-energy and passive houses in Weiz was organised. An exhibition with more than 30 innovative companies, who presented extensive and practical solutions for building retrofits, was organised in addition to the conference.
Opening
On Thursday, October 13th 2005 Johann Seitinger (member of the provincial government), Dr. Fritz Unterpertinger (Austrian Energy Agency, manager of the initiative klima:aktiv from the Austrian Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management) and Ing. Horst Fidlschuster (region manager of East-Styria) started the extensive “Retrofit-Initiative Styria” with main focus on multi-storey residential buildings and municipal buildings. It was possible to simultaneous implement actions from the Austrian federal state (klima:aktiv program wohnmodern), actions from the county of Styria (thermography and consulting) and regional activities (Retrofit-Initiative East-Styria) in an excellent way.
Lecturs
On the second day of the congress (Friday, October 14th 2005) speeches were held by leading national and international experts on high quality retrofit of large-volume buildings. The energy performance certificate, which will be necessary in the future in the framework of the EU-building directives, is seen as a great chance for a broad implementation of energetic modernisation of existing buildings. This certificate makes the energy demands of buildings and the corresponding key figures (analogue to the known energy category of electricity devices) transparent and comparable. A combination of broad information and consultancy as well as ecological orientated retrofit tools should in addition to this serve as stimulation of the refurbishment market in Austria. The lectures of well-known experts of research and development demonstrate that good solutions and concepts in the development of technology and components exist. In addition to the integration of known passive-house technology in the present building standards, new materials, such as vacuum insulation or phase change-materials and highly ecologically solutions with straw-insulation, show promising possibilities for high-grade energetic retrofit measures. The last lectures of the second day presented “best practice projects”, which impressively showed that the reduction of primary energy of the factor 10 is already reality. More than 460 participants of 12 nations were informed and discussed about the latest developments of retrofit of large-volume buildings.
Public – Energy Day
On the last day of the conference (Saturday, October 15th 2005), the exhibition was opened for the public. More than 1000 people visited the “Energy Day” and used the possibility to be advised from more than 30 exhibitors about retrofit of buildings, passive and low-energy houses.
Summary
As a result of the success of this international congress and the positive feedback of the participants, the date in autumn 2007 should be noted, then current innovations and activities to the topic “high-class retrofit of buildings” will again be presented in the energy-region Weiz-Gleisdorf.
Proceedings
The proceedings of the conference can be ordered as hardcopy or CD for a charge of 5 € from seminare@aee-intec.at or downloaded from here, free of charge.