Sustainable Cities and Society 30 (2017) 184–194 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Sustainable Cities and Society journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scs An approach for energy performance and indoor climate assessment in a Portuguese school building Hermano Bernardo a,∗ , Carlos Henggeler Antunes a , Adélio Gaspar b , Luísa Dias Pereira b , Manuel Gameiro da Silva b a INESC Coimbra, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pólo II, University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal b ADAI – LAETA, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Pólo II, University of Coimbra, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 14 July 2016 Received in revised form 24 December 2016 Accepted 27 December 2016 Available online 30 December 2016 Keywords: School buildings Energy efficiency Energy monitoring Indoor air quality Indoor environmental conditions a b s t r a c t The main goal of this paper is to present a set of well-defined and structured procedures to establish guidelines for the application of an integrated assessment of energy performance and indoor climate in schools. Increasing the knowledge about how energy is consumed in schools is a way to enhance the awareness of school managers (board of directors) about the importance of improving energy efficiency and reducing energy costs. The proposed methodology helps to identify major energy consuming equip- ment in school buildings and potential energy conservation measures. The assessment of indoor climate identifies potential corrective measures to problems related to indoor air quality and thermal comfort, also supporting the study of further energy conservation measures associated with ensuring environ- mental quality. Results of a case study showed that the expected energy consumption reduction is about 11.2% due to a better usage of daylighting and 4.5% due to the reduction of fresh air flow rates, while extending the ventilation operation time. In addition, there is a considerable non-calculated potential for energy savings and improvement of indoor environmental conditions in school buildings, promoting students and teachers productivity and wellbeing. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The final energy consumption in the EU-28 was approximately 46 million TJ in 2012, in which the building sector accounted for about 39% of the total consumption (EUROSTAT, 2014) and edu- cational buildings represented 12% of the building sector share (Laustsen, Ruyssevelt, Staniaszek, Strong, & Zinett, 2011). There- fore, improving the energy performance of the European building stock constitutes an effective way to alleviate the EU energy imports dependency and meet the EU targets to 2020 (European Commission, 2010). A major renovation programme named Secondary School Build- ing Modernisation Programme has been carried out in Portugal since 2007. This initiative aims to tackle the physical deterioration of the building stock in terms of energy performance and indoor environ- mental requirements, addressing comfort, sanitary standards and the functional adequacy of the buildings for teaching and learning, often with extension of the existing built area (OECD, 2012). This ∗ Corresponding author at: INESC Coimbra – Institute for Systems Engineering and Computers at Coimbra, Rua Sílvio Lima, DEEC, Pólo II, University of Coimbra, 3030-290 Coimbra, Portugal. E-mail address: hbernardo@inescc.pt (H. Bernardo). policy was launched under circumstances of strong public invest- ment as part of a stimulus strategy aimed at boosting economic growth throughout the country. This context dramatically changed, and the economic crisis and severe financial constraints may be invoked to reinforce the value of carefully analysing the impact of this program, namely to reduce the operating costs of refurbished schools. Therefore, an assessment of the programme focused on energy consumption and indoor environmental quality (IEQ) evalu- ation was performed in a framework of a research and development (R&D) project – 3Es Project (Gameiro da Silva et al., 2013). For a proper learning environment, school buildings require optimised indoor environmental conditions, including thermal comfort, indoor air quality, lighting, and a quiet “atmosphere”. In general, energy consumption increases with indoor environmen- tal comfort requirements, which leads to an increase in energy costs of school buildings (Becker, Goldberger, & Paciuk, 2007, Hong, Paterson, Mumovic, & Steadman, 2014). Due to high energy costs, schools should manage their buildings taking energy efficiency measures into consideration to reduce operational costs and pro- vide suitable indoor environmental conditions to the occupants (Dimoudi and Kostarela, 2009; Escrivá-Escrivá, 2011). Energy consumption of school buildings is dependent on many technical, operational and management issues and rational use of http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2016.12.014 2210-6707/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.