Assumptions of the major political and legal documents of the European Union, dedicated to energy efficiency and energy performance of buildings provide the Member States with relevant instruments supporting improvement of the ambient air qualityby dissemination of measures reducing energy demand and promotion of renewable energysources. Mainstreaming EU legislation into national regulations constitutes initial stage of the long term process of supporting implementation of energy efficiency measures. Experience in the improvement of energy performance of the residential buildings revealslimited efficiency of the measures implemented up to date, which results in significantair pollution of Polish cities. The national Action Plans had adopted a limited scope of recommendations included in the EU directives, hence the process meets significant challenges.The article describes adaptation of the relevant EU directives as well as the National Urban Policy in terms of the potential to effectively address faced challenges.

The paper presents the results of energy and environmental evaluation of geothermal CHP plant. The variant of CHP plant based on Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) has been taken into consideration as the most favorable for the geothermal conditions prevailing in Poland. The existing geothermal well located in the city of Konin in Greater Poland (Wielkopolska) voivodship has been chosen as the case study. The conceptual design of CHP plant has been proposed and evaluated from energy and environmental point of view. The non-renewable primary energy consumption has been chosen as energy performance criterion. In the case of environmental performance carbon dioxide emission has been taken as evaluation criterion. The analysis has been performed for different operating conditions and three working fluids. The best energy performance can be spotted for working fluid R123, for which the reduction varies between 15200 and 11900 MWh/a. The working fluid R134a has a worse energy performance, which allows for the reduction of fossil fuels energy consumption in the range of 15000 and 11700 MWh/a. The total reduction of CO2 emission is the highest for working fluid R123: 5300 to 4150 MgCO2/a, the medium one for working fluid R134a: 5200 to 4100 MgCO2/a and the lowest for working fluid R227: 5000 to 4050 MgCO2/a. It has been shown that the construction of geothermal CHP plants based on Organic Rankine Cycle can be reasonable solution in Polish conditions. It is important concerning the need of reduction of fossil fuels primary energy consumption and carbon dioxide emission.

Outdoor lighting is an important element in creating an evening and nocturnal image of urban spaces. Properly designed and constructed lighting installations provide residents with comfort and security. One way to improve the energy efficiency of road lighting installation is to replace the electromagnetic control gear (ECG) with electronic ballasts (EB). The main purpose of this article is to provide an in-depth comparative analysis of the energy efficiency and performance of HPS lamps with ECG and EB. It will compare their performance under sinusoidal and nonsinusoidal voltage supply conditions for the four most commonly used HPS lamps of 70 W, 100 W, 150 W, and 250 W. The number of luminaires supplied from one circuit was determined based on the value of permissible active power losses. With the use of the DIALux program, projects of road lighting installation were developed. On this basis, energy performance indicators, electricity consumption, electricity costs, and CO 2 emissions were calculated for one-phase and three-phase installations. The obtained results indicate that an HPS lamp with EB is better than an HPS lamp with ECG in terms of energy quality, energy savings, and environmental impact. The results of this analysis are expected to assist in the choice of HPS lighting technology.

The consumption of various forms of primary and secondary energy is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Also, the increase in the prices of energy resources is an important factor affecting the economic profitability of running a business organization. Legal requirements in the European Union also affect the need to implement appropriate solutions aimed at increasing energy efficiency, which translates into the need of implementing Energy Management Systems, based the ISO 50001 standard, in many enterprises.. In the case study presented in the article, which is based on a company from the energy industry in Poland, the most important Energy Performance Indexes and the impact of the quality of their information on the results obtained were reviewed. In the analyzed example, the main process used only 28% of the total energy consumption in the organization. Insufficient attention to auxiliary processes led to an undercut of Energy Performance by nearly 11% in the first year of operation. It is partic-ularly important to properly collect data on auxiliary processes, which are very often omitted or treated in general in companies, and as shown may constitute a significant share in the total amount of energy consumed.