The EPFL Campus in Lausanne: New Energy Strategies for 2050

The increase of the urban population and the climate change are issues that scientists and stakeholders are facing nowadays; in this optic a sustainable design should address buildings, and all the physical phenomena that interact with them, from the urban to the district scale. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) located in Switzerland is now facing this problematic, and its sustainable strategy "Energy Concept 2015-2045" aims to reduce the energy demand per person by 30%, and the CO2 emissions by 50% in 2035. The university campus is growing-the energy reference area has increased by 25% from 2001, and is expected to continue in the next years- and the actual district heating system (two heat pumps with a combined heat and power facility installed in the early 70s) is facing peak power limitations nowadays. Looking for an answer for this issue, a new concept called Energy Hub is sought for the campus: an intelligent unit able to stock and redistribute energy with different carriers. This paper presents the pre-requisite for a potential energy hub on the site of the EPFL campus in Lausanne: the validation of a dynamic heating energy demand model (correlation factor R2=0.89 compared to monitoring) and a BiPV power plant model for the solar electricity produced on the EPFL buildings roofs (correlation factor R2=0.93 compared to monitoring). Finally, two hypothetical refurbishment of the site, according to the Swiss Minergie and Minergie-P labels, are proposed; they reduce the heating demand of buildings by 38% and 44% respectively. Refurbishments are analysed using actual weather data (average data from the last ten years), as well as future scenarios for 2050, showing the impact of climate change on the building thermal behaviour. © 2015 The Authors.