Innovation, low energy buildings and intermediaries in Europe: systematic case study review

As buildings throughout their lifecycle account for circa 40% of total energy use in Europe, reducing energy use of the building stock is a key task. This task is, however, complicated by a range of factors, including slow renewal and renovation rates of buildings, multiple non- coordinated actors, conservative building practices, and limited competence to innovate. Drawing from academic literature published during 2005-2015, this article carries out a systematic review of case studies on low energy innovations in the European residential building sector, analysing their drivers. Specific attention is paid to intermediary actors in facilitating innovation processes and creating new opportunities. The study finds that qualitative case study literature on low energy building innovation has been limited, particularly regarding the existing building stock. Environmental concerns, EU, national and local policies have been the key drivers; financial, knowledge and social sustainability and equity drivers have been of modest importance; while design, health and comfort, and market drivers have played a minor role. Intermediary organisations and individuals have been important through five processes: (1) facilitating individual building projects, (2) creating niche markets, (3) implementing new practices in social housing stock, (4) supporting new business model creation, and (5) facilitating building use post construction. The intermediaries have included both public and private actors, while local authority agents have acted as intermediaries in several cases

Adsorption isotherms of water in Li-, Na-, and K-montmorillonite by molecular simulation

A biased Monte Carlo method for the insertion of water in dense clay-water systems is presented. The use of this algorithm results in a considerable increase of the success rate of insertion attempts. It allows to compute water adsorption isotherms up to high water densities, where the conventional Monte Carlo scheme fails. The isotherms were calcd. by a combination of mol. dynamics and grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulation for Li-, Na-, and K-montmorillonite at a fixed d(001) spacing of 12.0 .ANG.. At low water pressure, the degree of clay hydration is governed by the type of counterion, Li-montmorillonite having the highest water content. Hydrogen bonding between water mols. is absent. Li+ and Na+ are small enough to be organized in 2 layers close to the clay mineral surfaces, whereas K+ is mainly located in the midplane. In both cases, the water mols. primarily reside in the midplane of the interlayer. Increasing the water pressure leads to water adsorption at higher energy sites closer to the surface, i.e., coordinating to the structural OH groups in the hexagonal cavities. A hydrogen bond network is formed in the clay interlayer. This points to water condensation and leads to a sharp increase in the clay water content. [on SciFinder (R)