The European Union has set the objective of reducing current energy consumption by 20% until 2020. Buildings are major consumers of energy. They represents about 40% of total energy consumption and the figure is rising. Research has indicated that by improving energy efficiency, carbon emissions from buildings could be reduced by 22% until 2010. This would help the Union to meet its climate change objectives under the Kyoto Protocol commitments as well as to improve the energy performance of new and existing buildings.
New norms and laws are being enacted locally since the Energy Performance in Buildings directive was ratified by the European Parliament and became law on January 2003.
The Union has focused its improvement of the present situation on three parameters: the reliability of energetic supply, attention to the climatic change and the creation of new jobs.
Atika achieves the first two through its low energy consumption, as well as by the use of exclusively solar and air renewable energies. Its construction and recyclability also make Atika an almost CO2-emission-free building. VELUX helps to achieve the third objective by developing concepts and systems based on building sustainability, an interesting market with strongly increasing employee’s rates in many countries of the European Union.
Article 18 of the Directive states that the number of air-conditioning systems is rising in south European countries. This creates considerable problems at peak load times, increasing the cost of electricity and disrupting national energy balances.
The Directive recommends following strategies that enhance the thermal performance of building during summer, such as passive cooling techniques that improve indoor climatic conditions.