As economic and political pressure mounts for an energy-efficient Europe, finding a balance between heritage conservation and energy conservation in historic buildings becomes more urgent. A systematic approach is required that takes into account technological, environmental and economic factors and their impact on the heritage value of historical properties.
The project “Conservation of Cultural Property” (known as CEN TC 346) has created a working group that aims to give European curators of heritage sites clear standards and guidelines for their conservation and restoration work. CEN, the European Committee for Standardization, also wants to ensure that experts in both heritage conservation and energy efficiency exchange knowledge and experiences that can harmonise testing and analysis standards in Europe.
As part of this endeavour, the 3ENCULT project is laying the foundation for greater cooperation within this CEN work on energy efficiency. 3ENCULT is participating in two technical committees, CEN/TC 346/WG4-TG15 “Protection of Collections” and CEN/TC 346/WG8 “Energy Efficiency of Historic Buildings”.
Augmenting this knowledge base is the competence of the partners in the Energy Performance of Building (EPBD) Directive. Their work is contributing to a CEN-standard for energy efficiency in historic and protected buildings, by liaising with national standard organisations and assisting in the cooperation between CEN TC 346 and other CEN initiatives on energy efficiency calculation techniques.

For more information, read “Position Paper on criteria regarding the assessment of energy efficiency measures regarding their compatibility with conservation issues”

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