RENEW SCHOOL Austria: Examples and financing models for school renovations

Summary

Starting point / motivation

In Europe there is a big demand on technologies which raise the renovation rate of buildings beyond the 1%, where it is now. Prefabricated wooden elements as technology used for new, but also for building renovation in Germany, Switzerland and especially Austria, is given good chances and future perspectives by experts. First of all in school buildings this technology has very high interest because of short construction time on-site not disturbing the school lessons, using wooden elements integrating not only insulation but also renewable modules and ductwork for ventilation or heating etc.

Contents and goals

The project supported the activities of the IEE EU-project „RENEW SCHOOL - Sustainable school building renovation promoting timber prefabrication, indoor environment quality and active use of renewables". There have been different activities to network the representatives of research, economy/companies, school financiers/owners for exchanging their knowledge in different ways. RENEW SCHOOL promoted the know-how-transfer and the market uptake of wooden based prefab solutions, ventilation, shading and renewable systems for new and renovated school buildings.

RENEW SCHOOL Austria supported these activities by publishing a brochure about innovative best practice schools and with more investigations on how the financial models and the process of successful renovation regarding cooperation had been carried out in these schools. The project strengthened the effort on the implementation of high qualitative energy renovations of public buildings, schools as well as others, with multipliable wooden based construction technologies and their market uptake.

Methods

A selection of 14 schools built or renovated with prefabricated timber elements in Austria was done. This selection followed specific criteria with the focus on best possible thermal and energy quality. A deep investigation on the financial and cooperation models as well as the technical solutions used in the renovation projects was carried out by doing interviews and questionnaires with the school financiers, total contractors and planning companies.

Results

A brochure for the target group of school owners, planners and decision makers was made from these investigations and printed in German and English language. This brochure and results from the investigations on cooperation and financing were presented and disseminated to the target group, in workshops and within the international project network as well as in different media.

Project leader

AEE – Institut für Nachhaltige Technologien (AEE INTEC)

Project partners

• Passiefhuis-Platform vzw (PHP), BE. www.passiefhuisplatform.be
• Holzcluster Steiermark GmbH (HCS), AT. www.holzcluster-steiermark.at
• Trentino Technological Cluster (DTTN), IT. www.dttn.it
• Wood Industry Cluster, SI. www.lesarski-grozd.si
• Technical University of Denmark (DTU), DK. www.byg.dtu.dk
• Asplan Viak AS, NO. www.asplanviak.no
• National Energy Conservation Agency (NAPE), PL. www.nape.pl
• Chalmers University of Technology, SE. www.chalmers.se
• Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., DE. www.ibp.fraunhofer.de
• Informest – Service and Documentation Centre for International Economic Cooperation, IT. www.informest.it
• Autonomous Municipal Company for City Education in Antwerp (AGSO), BE. www.stedelijkonderwijs.be
• Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di Energia, Research Group on efficiency in energy end-use (eERG-PoliMi), IT. www.eerg.it

AEE – Institut für Nachhaltige Technologien (AEE INTEC)
DI Armin Knotzer
Feldgasse 19
A-8200 Gleisdorf
Email: a.knotzer@aee.at
www.aee-intec.at