Ambitious targets on transforming the building stock into a highly energy efficient and low carbon environment demand also very performing scientific tools for the evaluation of the energy performance of improved building envelopes and construction techniques. Full scale testing becomes –again- more relevant, in combination with dynamic analysis and numerical simulation tools.

Many test facilities of different scale are available at universities, research institutes and industrial R&D departments. New ones are under development. The capabilities of these facilities are not always well known or understood by the building industry and the broader research community. Moreover, a good operation of such facilities is challenging. 

For these reasons, the network organizations DYNASTEE (https://dynastee.info/) and INIVE (www.inive.org) have taken the initiative to organize a series of workshops on test and assessment methods for building energy performance.

This is a second workshop, focussing on full scale test facilities: Experiences with running such test facilities for the evaluation of the energy performance and hygrothermal characteristics of building components and full buildings were exchanged and the targets for developing new facilities were set.