Sustainability, Vol. 9, Pages 1869: Analysis of Energy Efficiency Measures and Retrofitting Solutions for Social Housing Buildings in Spain as a Way to Mitigate Energy Poverty (Sustainability)

Energy poverty is a common issue in social housing all over Europe, with a harder impact in Southern European countries. Social housing buildings play an important role in energy poverty. They are usually owned and managed by public institutions and usually share common characteristics and issues. Behavioural changes and energy retrofitting are interesting paths forward but some solutions do not fit well in this type of housing due to socioeconomic reasons. This paper makes a thorough analysis of possible energy efficiency measures in social housing buildings, characterizing them by energy and economic savings and investment and proposing different methods of prioritization. A rational approach of behavioural and retrofitting solutions that best fit into this particular housing type is delivered, with the aim to increase the thermal comfort of the residents and mitigate the energy poverty issue. Results show that there is a wide range of domestic efficiency measures to be applied in this type of dwellings at none or low costs, bringing annual savings per average dwelling of about 510 EUR/year (55% of initial energy costs) including measures both at domestic level, and at building level with a final aggregated payback of the investments to be about 1.5 years.