Overview of combined seismic and energy upgrading technologies for existing buildings

The renovation of existing buildings plays a key role in achieving the ambitious target of climate neutrality of the EU set out within the EU Green Deal. Through increased renovation of energy inefficient buildings, a reduction in energy consumption in the building sector can be achieved, as targeted by the Renovation Wave initiative. When considering the old age of the EU’s building stock, next to energy inefficiency, other, often structural, deficiencies need to be addressed. Particularly in Europe’s seismic regions, recent earthquakes have highlighted the vulnerability of the EU building stock and hence the need for retrofitting. With a large proportion of EU buildings requiring renovation, recent advances in scientific and technical development show that taking an integrated approach to building renovation, a better cost-effectiveness may be achieved. Particularly in regions of moderate to high seismicity, integrating energy upgrading with seismic retrofitting interventions, may lead to cost-benefits for the building owner, hence potentially fostering higher renovation uptakes. In this report, an overview of materials and technologies that may be used for the combined or integrated retrofitting of existing buildings is presented. Identified solutions include integrated exoskeleton solutions, strengthening and thermal insulation solutions for the external walls of existing buildings, their replacement with better-performing materials.