The buildings and the transport sector are the biggest consumers of energy in the country. Buildings in Greece are responsible for approximately 36% of total energy consumption. In 2000-2005, buildings in Greece increased their energy consumption about 24%, one of the highest increases in Europe.
One of the main reasons for this energy consumption is their oldness and the failure to incorporate modern technology to them. Most of these buildings are facing issues such as:
- partial or total lack of insulation
- old technology frames
- lack of sun protection of the southern and western views
- insufficient use of the high solar potential of the country
- inadequate maintenance of heating / air-conditioning resulting in low return
An important parameter that also determines the energy efficiency of a building is the behavior of the occupants. The lack of knowledge regarding the use and management of energy, often leads to wasteful behaviors such as installing air conditioning systems without project plan, the use of low performance devices, or non- maintenance of the heating system , etc.
In order to understand how important it is to live in a house with insulation, you have to see what happens in a house without heat insulation. The heat (or cooling - depending on the time) of the inner comes out of the house, hurming the environment while entering indoors the outdoor temperature, affecting the desired indoor climate. This is because both the building shell and the windows of the house are not insulated, so they affect by sunlight and the outside temperature. Imagine such a house in winter. As it is heated internally the heat escapes from the building due to non-insulated housing and windows without thermal break. In summer, the same happens with the air conditioning. Because the cooling escapes, we use more air conditioners, wasting more energy and money (cooling is much more expensive than heating). But if you insulate the exterior walls and choose the appropriate frames, we can save more than half the energy.
