Energy Costs of Energy Savings in Buildings A Review.docVIP

Sustainability 2012, 4, 1711-1732; doi:10.3390/su4081711 OPEN ACCESS sustainability ISSN 2071-1050 /journal/sustainability Review Energy Costs of Energy Savings in Buildings: A Review Yvan Dutil * and Daniel Rousse Industrial Research Chair in Technologies of Energy and Energy Efficiency, école de Technologie Supérieure, Université du Québec, 1100, Rue Notre-Dame Ouest, Montréal, QC H3C 1K3, Canada; E-Mail: daniel@ * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: yvan@; Tel.: +1-418-653-2910; Fax: +1-514-396-8530. Received: 30 March 2012; in revised form: 4 July 2012 / Accepted: 19 July 2012 / Published: 9 August 2012 Abstract: It is often claimed that the cheapest energy is the one you do not need to produce. Nevertheless, this claim could somehow be unsubstantiated. In this article, the authors try to shed some light on this issue by using the concept of energy return on investment (EROI) as a yardstick. This choice brings semantic issues because in this paper the EROI is used in a different context than that of energy production. Indeed, while watts and negawatts share the same physical unit, they are not the same object, which brings some ambiguities in the interpretation of EROI. These are cleared by a refined definition of EROI and an adapted nomenclature. This review studies the research in the energy efficiency of building operation, which is one of the most investigated topics in energy efficiency. This study focuses on the impact of insulation and high efficiency windows as means to exemplify the concepts that are introduced. These results were normalized for climate, life time of the building, and construction material. In many cases, energy efficiency measures imply a very high EROI. Nevertheless, in some circumstances, this is not the case and it might be more profitable to produce the required energy than to try to save it. Keywords: biophysical economy; life cycle assess