Since a large share of the total European primary energy is consumed in the building sector, buildings have to become more energy efficient in order to reach the goals of the European energy efficiency directive. In Sweden, focus has been on lowering final energy consumption, not primary energy consumption. A relevant question today is whether a general understanding of the primary energy concept is needed to encourage selection of better energy efficiency measures from an environmental perspective. There are however uncertainties of how to calculate primary energy consumption since different primary energy factors (PEF) are used by different actors, especially for district heating (DH) and electricity (EL.).

In this study total primary energy consumption was calculated for a residential building before and after several renovation measures were made. The major change after the renovation was that a large share of the DH was substituted by heat from an exhaust air heat pump and solar collectors. A range of commonly used PEFs were assessed.

The evaluation showed that the energy efficiency measures reduced the total primary energy consumption for most combinations of PEFs. The most essential was how the DH was valued. A low PEF for DH in combination with most of the PEFs for electricity could even result in higher total primary energy consumption after the renovation.