Danish Knowledge Centre for Energy Savings in Buildings

The Danish government has a clear goal: By 2025, the country’s energy consumption should be reduced by 25 % while the share of renewable energy sources should be increased from 19 to 30 %. On this background a national Knowledge Centre for Energy Savings in Buildings was established to serve building professionals.

Know-how, qualifications and motivation

The Knowledge Centre opened in 2009 and gathers expertise and best practices in the field of energy savings, primarily for the benefit of  building professionals. Now these professionals have free access to information, facts and advice about how to choose the right materials, technical solutions and construction methods for achieving energy savings. The Knowledge Centre for Energy Savings in Buildings strives to provide building professionals with the necessary know-how, qualifications and motivation to implement energy-saving solutions in the building stock.

The existing building stock offers an enormous potential for achieving energy savings: More than 40 % of the entire Danish energy  spendding is used in buildings.  The gains in this area will be a key factor in supporting the governmental goal.

Key areas

The main tasks of the Knowledge Centre are divided into three key areas: knowledge, solutions and communication. Building professionals should become increasingly better at offering owners and developers safe, easy and cost-efficient and energy-saving solutions. Moreover, end-user demand high quality at the lowest possible price to get a return-on-investment within a time frame of a few years.

Telephone hotline

A telephone hotline established for building professionals has been a success. They call the Knowledge Centre to get immediate, practical, hands-on answers to questions about how to implement energy-saving solutions like insulation or energy-efficient windows.

State-of-the-art tools and solutions

With the aim of actually reaching the target of substantial energy reductions in Denmark it is necessary to prime the operators of the building industry so that they will rise to the challenge. The new Centre systematises the comprehensive knowledge about how to successfully implement energy-saving solutions and makes it easily accessible. The Knowledge Centre for Energy Savings in Buildings will keep collecting, summarising and processing all available knowledge in this field to turn the Centre into the place where building professionals look for state-of–the art tools and solutions for saving energy in buildings. 

Facts and Figures

The government has allocated DKK 32 million (or approx EUR 4.3 million) for the establishment and operation of the Knowledge Centre from 2008 until 2011. The Centre refers to the Danish Energy Agency.

A consortium is running the Knowledge Centre for Energy Savings in Buildings, consisting of:  Danish Technological Institute, Danish Building Research Institute/Aalborg University, Viegand & Maagøe and KommunikationsKompagniet.