House Energy Rating

This article is about a general description of the term. For Australia, see Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme. For the UK, see National Home Energy Rating. For the US, see Home Energy Rating.

The House Energy Rating (HER) or House Energy Rating Scheme (HERS) are worldwide standard measures of comparison by which one can evaluate the energy efficiency of a new or an existing building. The comparison is generally done for energy requirements for heating and cooling of indoor space. The energy is the main criterion considered by any international building energy rating scheme but there are some other important factors such as production of greenhouse gases emission, indoor environment quality, cost efficiency and thermal comfort, which are considered by some schemes. Basically, the energy rating of a residential building provides detailed information on the energy consumption and the relative energy efficiency of the building. Hence, HERs inform consumers about the relative energy efficiency of homes and encourage them to use this information in making their house purchase decision.[1]

There are many energy rating tools by which one can calculate the energy performance of a building. Basically all these tools involve a numerical description or prepare a computer-based model for the rating of a building against standard occupancy and activity templates.[2] HERS uses computer-simulation based methods for assessing the energy efficiency of buildings under standard conditions and its potential for improvement.

  1. ^ kordjamshidi, Maria (2011), House rating schemes, Springer, ISBN 978-3-642-15790-5
  2. ^ Hernandez, Patxi; Burke, Kevin; Lewis, J. Owen (2008), "Development of energy performance benchmarks and building energy ratings for non-domestic buildings: An example for Irish primary schools", Energy and Buildings, 40 (3): 249–254, Bibcode:2008EneBu..40..249H, doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2007.02.020