By Woytek Kujawski Inpol Consulting Fax: 613 592-5582

Poland is a country not only coping with the problems of moving towards a free market economy but also one that is facing severe energy and environmental problems. Consider the following :

	energy consumption, related to GDP, is as much as three times higher than in some western countries;
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	while the natural environment has suffered seriously throughout Poland, some heavily industrialized regions can accurately be called ecological disaster zones;
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	social awareness of the relationship of energy use to environmental conditions or to the economy is almost non-existant while coal mining interests still constitute a significant barrier to change.
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  energy prices have almost reached world levels;

To wit, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has calculated that improvements in Polish energy usage could decrease consumption by 17 to 45 per cent below current levels. However, the barriers to these necessary changes are formidable.

Until recently, energy efficient and environmentally sound building design had been systematically neglected because of a long standing emphasis on volume production over efficiency or quality. Prices for energy and fuel were kept artificially low, which favoured energy intensive industries and allowed for extravagant energy use in the building sector, as well as others.

Since central planning has been abandoned in favour of a market economy, Poland has had to deal with the situation left behind by the old regime: low economic effectiveness of industry, environmental destruction and a high dependence on imported fuels. Added to these conditions were low quality standards, chronic shortages of appropriate materials, outdated production technologies and energy transmission methods and a lack of adequate budgets.

Meanwhile, in western countries, there has been a gradual and systematic development of energy policies leading to considerable improvments in energy efficiency and environment protection since the early 1980's. This has been possible only due to methodical development of coherent legal, economic, organizational, financial and educational frameworks which favour economic and environmental policies through a combination of regulation, incentives and technological R&D. The development of such a framework for improvements in Poland has barely begun.

A consequence of the factors outlined above is that residential and non-residential buildings in Poland consume too much energy. Typical values of annual consumption (for heating only) in residential buildings, built before 1986, has stayed in the range of 240-300 kWh/m²/year, in certain cases reaching as much as 400 kWh/m²/year. For buildings constructed between 1986 and 1992 typical energy consumption ranges from 160 to 180 kWh/m ²/year. For those built after 1992, when regulations for energy consumption were introduced, values of 120-160 kWh/m ²/year have been achieved.

How does this performance relate to other countries? One comparative measure is the energy needed to heat a single square meter of a typical housing unit: in typical Warsaw housing, this value was 385 kWh in 1993; in Sweden, it was approximately 100 kWh; and in Ottawa, the coldest capital in the world, the comparable figure was about 150 kWh.

These data, and the increasing cost of energy in Poland, have led to action. Retrofit insulation of existing residential buildings in Poland is now a major activity, and it is being encouraged by the need to conform to new energy-efficiency regulations. An increased consciousness of the necessity for environmental protection is also emerging. Recently, Poland's ECO-FUND has announced its financial support for 17 new environmental projects in areas of reduction of green-house gas emissions and cross border pollution and preservation of biodiversity.

Polish regulations related to the performance of building envelopes, though matching corresponding stand-ards in Western countries situated at the same latitude, have been imple-mented with nearly a 20 year delay. In practice, this means that the building stock will be subjected to major retrofits, and the scale of the problem means that this process will likely take place over the next ten to twenty years.

The average structure of energy used in apartment buildings in Poland is, approximately, as follows :

heating and ventilation	71%
domestic hot water	13%
kitchen usage	9%
lighting and other equipment	7%

  The value of the factor E be less than E ₀ (limit value); or

	The building envelope will be constructed according to prescriptive standards for thermal resistance and air-tightness. The option of choosing either a performance or a prescriptive approach is similar to many western regulations.
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Sample Values of E 0 Factors for Different Building and Development Types For (left to right): Multi-storey detached; Two-Storey Rowhouse; Two-Storey Detached; Bungalow Detached

Limit values for annual energy consumption per m2 of heated areas (E0) for various configurations of buildings, according to regulations being implemented in 1997  by Murator

Limit values of the E₀ seasonal heat demand factor in a building depends on the height of the space and the quotient value A/V (surface area of the building in m²/volume of the building). The values E₀ for buildings are estimated in the side table. Polish building authorities consider a building energy efficient when the E value does not attain a level of 100kWh/m ²/year, and the intention is to reduce heating consumption norms to 70kWh/m²/year by the year 2000.

Two major factors in reducing energy consumption is the adequate thermal insulation and reduction of air leakage through the building envelope. In terms of insulation, one option, often considered the most durable and efficient solution used in Poland, is to insulate the masonry and concrete precast walls from the exterior, using rigid polystyrene insulation, and then protect it with an outer layer of acrylic or regular stucco. Another option is to attach a metal grid to the exterior wall, fill it with batt insulation and then cover it with corrugated steel panels.

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Double glazed windows have been a standard for many years in new buildings, but most of the older buildings still have single pane window components. Typical Polish buildings can lose as much as 20-30% of heat through the windows. As window retrofits are very expensive, the process is still quite uncommon.

Air leakage through the building envelope is also a problem which runs contrary to the commonly held Polish view that masonry or concrete construction, even if left without a stucco finish, is relatively air tight.

Converging Both Ends of the 20TH Century

Most new single family and small multi-unit apartment buildings are heated with coal fired hydronic systems although more recent oil and natural gas technologies are being introduced. Heating for large multi-unit buildings is mostly supplied by large, inefficient district heating plants which are, again, usually coal fired. Heat pumps or cogeneration plants are still very rare due to their high capital costs.

For years, most Polish low-rise housing design has used passive ventilation strategies. The chimney, for example, which contains the flue used to exhaust combustion gases, is a masonry structure containing several smaller ventilation flues for various areas of the building or apartment. Multi-unit high-rise residential buildings have prefabricated concrete shafts combined with gravitational or forced mechanical ventilation.

The adoption of criteria for cost, energy consumption and occupant comfort in the analysis of design are leading to conclusions that would be surprising elsewhere. One such example is of an analysis of the use of gas versus electricity for cooking and hot water in apartment buildings. Polish studies have led to the conclusion that electric kitchens offer several advantages over gas kitchens in many areas; such as :

	an increase in the usable kitchen area which would otherwise be needed for ventilation shafts. This same reasoning can be applied to bathrooms where hot water is produced by gas heaters;
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	a reduction in the capital costs of installation, equipment, insurance and maintenance of the building, and in the capital costs of appliances (about 200 $CDN); and
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  a reduction in operating costs, due to the greater efficiency of electric appliances.
  an improvement in safety by eliminating possible explosions;
  a reduction of CO, CO ₂ and particulates in the interior environment;

The overall efficiency of kitchens with open flame gas stoves depends on many different factors, including appliance design, adequate conditions for combustion, gas pressure etc., and can be estimated at 25 - 40 per cent efficient. Electric stoves, on the other hand, can be 85 - 95 per cent efficient, but as the cost of gas is 3.2 times less than the cost of electric energy both are essentially comparable. It should be noted that the advantages claimed for the benefits of electricity may be particular to Poland at this stage of its development because of industry pressure to use the coal-fired electrical generation capacity and the absence of a requirement for directly vented gas appliances (as is understood in North America).

In socialist Poland there was no institution mandated to create and encourage energy efficiency programs. Only after the collapse of communism, in the late 80s, did the opportunity and the perceived need arise to establish the necessary organizations. In 1992, two such organizations were created to deal with energy and environmental isues - the Energy Conservation Foundation (ECF), a non-profit founded and backed by a Polish Development Bank, and the Home (Polish National) Energy Conservation Agency (KAPE), a public body acting under governmental control

Since then, the ECF has concentrated its efforts on creating a base for all future energy and environmental activities through education, training and by using the achievements and mistakes of other countries as benchmarks. The ECF has also been active in developing seminars and programs: among them, a very succesful post graduate study for energy auditors called "Power engineering auditing in industry" and an energy audit software package called "Audytor". The ECF has also prepared, together with the Building Research Institute in Warsaw, new energy efficiency regulations.

In 1995, the ECF and KAPE created a third organization, the National Energy Conservation Agency (NECA), which is targeted at reducing potential conflicts or duplication of activities. The basic goals of NECA are to improve the overall level of energy efficiency in the country and to promote energy conservation as a good business practice for consumers and utilities. To that end, NECA has been active in a wide variety of energy-related fields; such as, the preparation of legislation and guidelines, improving the energy supply, education and, for our purposes, the improvement of energy end use in the building sector.

Studies by domestic and international institutions dealing with energy problems have defined the size of the problem in Poland and the level of possible savings. An attempt to solve the problem outlines the necessity to prepare a national long term energy conservation program. Action towards this goal will require financial support of the state budget, national and international financial institutions and assistance from foreign organizations.

The limited financial resources of the NECA means that the most common form of financial support will have to be loans of varying interest and repayment terms. The typical means of financing these investments will be in the form of guarantees of loan repayments or interest subsidies. The availability of such assistance will depend on proof of financial viability and analysis of documents, such as energy audit forms, shown by investors. Some energy conservation investments will require high risk financing, along the lines of venture capital, or straight subsidies.

The new Polish energy regulations will open the doors for both demand side management (DSM) and energy service companies (ESCOs) which, on a legal basis, will be very similar to that in any western country.

Poland is undergoing a period of massive transition, and the building industry is as much affected as any other major sector in the economy. Energetic steps are being taken to catch up to western countries in the areas of energy efficiency and environmental considerations, however, the actual course taken by Poland is bound to be somewhat different than in the west because of the differnces in building stock, the reliance on coal resources and the priority placed on the overall social impact.

In any case, the size of the market, the high levels of demand and the growing Polish economy suggest major opportunities for western firms to participate in this process of improvement. Although construction quality standards still leave something to be desired, industry professionals are relatively sophisticated and quite optimistic about truly collaborative efforts.

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