Critical Discussion on Building Energy Retrofit Policies

10th International Conference on Energy and Sustainability, Lisbon, Portekiz, 2 - 04 Ekim 2023, cilt.1, sa.38495, ss.13-23

Building energy retrofit has become crucial in reducing the energy consumption of buildings since

buildings have a significant energy consumption rate. Therefore, energy retrofit can reduce energy

consumption while improving energy performance, and the building’s overall image can also be

changed. However, as it is for new buildings, governmental organisations should control and audit the

building energy retrofit process to provide the requirements and keep the standard. Recently, energy

retrofit gained popularity worldwide with the increasing interest in ‘sustainable development’ and

‘energy efficiency’ issues due to the existing building’s role in energy consumption. In this case,

different countries have developed policies based on their situations. For instance, since Europe has

numerous old buildings, regulatory processes, incentives, and public awareness drive the retrofitting

process. On the other hand, in the USA, companies offer energy-efficient retrofit solutions to building

owners or operators due to the characteristics of the market-based driven energy retrofit process.

However, Turkey has general laws on energy efficiency in buildings, such as the Energy Efficiency

Law and the National Energy Efficiency Plan, as the building energy retrofit process is a brand-new

topic. Thus, there is a need to develop detailed directives and incentives to manage the process

efficiently. This paper discusses regulatory approaches and policies used for the building energy retrofit

process in the European Union and the USA to develop proposals for the Turkish construction industry.

First, it provides a comparative analysis of the policy-based process of building energy retrofit. For this

purpose, the official building energy retrofit regulations are examined, pros and cons are discussed.

Finally, a regulatory approach is proposed for the Turkish construction industry for building energy

retrofit by investigating the challenges and opportunities.