scholarly journals Impact of Wall Constructions on Energy Performance of Switchable Insulation Systems

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 6068
Author(s):  
Remy Carlier ◽  
Mohammad Dabbagh ◽  
Moncef Krarti

This paper evaluates the potential energy savings when switchable insulation systems (SIS) are applied to walls of residential buildings located in Belgium and other locations in Europe. The study considers two low-energy prototypical dwellings (an apartment and a detached house) that are representative of post-2010 constructions and renovations in Belgium. Using an 3R2C-based analysis tool, the performance of both dwellings is evaluated with static and dynamic wall insulation systems. First, the switchable insulating system is described along with its associated simple 2-step rule-based control strategy. Then the modeling strategy and simulation analysis tools are presented. In Belgium, it was found that SIS-integrated walls allow energy savings up to 3.7% for space heating and up to 98% for cooling. Moreover, it was found that to further reduce the energy consumption of SIS-integrated buildings in various European climates, thermal mass placement needs to be considered. By optimizing the placement and the parameters of the various wall layers, it is possible to increase the space heating savings by up to a factor of 4 and those of cooling by up to a factor of 2.5.

2020 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 25007
Author(s):  
Martin Thalfeldt ◽  
Anders Skare ◽  
Laurent Georges ◽  
Øyvind Skreiberg

Wood stoves are widely used in Nordic countries. They offer a good opportunity to use biomass for space-heating and to reduce the peak power of all-electric buildings. However, wood stoves are highly concentrated heat sources with limited control compared to other typical heat emission systems, which makes the assessment of their impact challenging. This study introduces a simulation-based parametric study of a detached house equipped with a wood stove located in Oslo, Norway. The respective impact of different building parameters and stove nominal powers on the building performance is illustrated. The analysis shows that the annual total space-heating needs (i.e. the sum of the base load, modelled as ideal heaters representing the electrical radiators, the stove and the heating of the ventilation supply air) increased significantly due to the higher average indoor temperature. The resulting heat emission efficiency of the stove ranged between 66% and 90%. However, the stoves covered between 28% and 62% of the total space-heating needs. When using the stove, the maximum hourly-averaged power for the electrical radiators decreased between 5 W/m2 and 31 W/m2 during the peak hours of the electricity grid. The building thermal mass, insulation level, as well as the combination of internal door position with the bedroom temperature setpoint, had a significant impact on the calculated values. Finally, the study revealed that the occupant behaviour modelling should be improved to better capture the wood stove impact on the energy performance using building simulations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1595
Author(s):  
Valeria Todeschi ◽  
Roberto Boghetti ◽  
Jérôme H. Kämpf ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani

Building energy-use models and tools can simulate and represent the distribution of energy consumption of buildings located in an urban area. The aim of these models is to simulate the energy performance of buildings at multiple temporal and spatial scales, taking into account both the building shape and the surrounding urban context. This paper investigates existing models by simulating the hourly space heating consumption of residential buildings in an urban environment. Existing bottom-up urban-energy models were applied to the city of Fribourg in order to evaluate the accuracy and flexibility of energy simulations. Two common energy-use models—a machine learning model and a GIS-based engineering model—were compared and evaluated against anonymized monitoring data. The study shows that the simulations were quite precise with an annual mean absolute percentage error of 12.8 and 19.3% for the machine learning and the GIS-based engineering model, respectively, on residential buildings built in different periods of construction. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis using the Morris method was carried out on the GIS-based engineering model in order to assess the impact of input variables on space heating consumption and to identify possible optimization opportunities of the existing model.


2019 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 03035 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raimo Simson ◽  
Endrik Arumägi ◽  
Kalle Kuusk ◽  
Jarek Kurnitski

In the member states of the European Union (EU), nearly-Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) are becoming mandatory building practice in 2021. It is stated, that nZEB should be cost-optimal and the energy performance levels should be re-defined after every five years. We conducted cost-optimality analyses for two detached houses, one terraced house and one apartment building in Estonia. The analysis consisted on actual construction cost data collection based on bids of variable solutions for building envelope, air tightness, windows, heat supply systems and local renewable energy production options. For energy performance analysis we used dynamic simulation software IDA-ICE. To assess cost-effectiveness, we used Net Present Value (NPV) calculations with the assessment period of 30 years. The results for cost-optimal energy performance level for detached house with heated space of ~100 m2 was 79 kWh/(m2 a), for the larger house (~200 m2) 87 kWh/(m2 a), for terraced house with heated space of ~600 m2 71 kWh/(m2 a) and for the apartment building 103 kWh/(m2 a) of primary energy including all energy use with domestic appliances. Thus, the decrease in cost-optimal level in a five-year period was ~60% for the detached house and ~40% for the apartment building, corresponding to a shift in two EPC classes.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Justyna Kobylarczyk ◽  
Janusz Marchwiński ◽  
Katarzyna Zielonko-Jung

The following article is intended to discuss the issues concerning the introduction of passive measures aimed at improving solar protection in multi-family buildings. A system of classifying these methods into two groups of solutions (architectural and material-building) was applied. The first group includes issues concerning facade design, the spatial features of which (such as loggias, balconies and other overhangs) can be treated as one of the solar protection methods. The authors’ own studies are presented and expressed in a sequence of formulas. The formulas enable assessment of the effectiveness of the above elements, depending on external conditions. As far as the second group is concerned, material-construction solutions for building facades and roofs are discussed. The solutions mentioned include solar-control glazing, spatial shading elements (such as venetian blinds, roller blinds), roof and façade vegetation, and the thermal mass of the building. The essence of the functioning of the analysed solutions in relation to the characteristic functional specificity of multi-family buildings is discussed. Problematic areas of application of the above methods are indicated. As shown in the study, problematic areas may include a group of utilitarian-operating, economic and aesthetic issues, in the case of which the use of passive solutions encounters limitations. In conclusion, the possibilities for alleviating these limitations are highlighted. The authors’ own solutions presented in the following paper can contribute to energy savings and may thus prove beneficial for environmental reasons, thereby serving the aims of sustainable development.


2018 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 01007
Author(s):  
Dany Perwita Sari ◽  
Yun-shang Chiou

There are some architectural factors in the energy saving design of residential houses in Taiwan. In addition, in rural area, window glazing is a key factor to reducing electricity. For these purposes, a simulation model of exterior shading has been done in this study. Various types of shading devices have been analysed and compared in terms of energy savings. Simulation analysis by DesignBuilder reveals that shading devices has substantial impact to minimizing energy consumption. The results derived in this paper could provide useful suggestions for the shading design of residential buildings at rural area in Taiwan.


Solar Energy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdelkarim Nemri ◽  
Moncef Krarti

This paper provides a simplified analysis tool to assess the energy saving potential of daylighting for commercial buildings through skylights. Specifically, the impact of daylighting is investigated for various fenestration opening sizes, glazing types, control strategies, and geographic locations. A top floor of a prototypical office building has been considered in the analysis. The results obtained for the office building can be applied to other types of buildings such as retails stores, schools, and warehouses. Based on the simulation analysis results, it was determined that skylight to floor ratio more than 0.3 does not affect significantly the lighting energy savings. An optimum value of skylight to floor area ratio was found to be 0.2 to minimize the annual total building energy use.


2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (suppl. 2) ◽  
pp. 447-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bojan Andjelkovic ◽  
Branislav Stojanovic ◽  
Mladen Stojiljkovic ◽  
Jelena Janevski ◽  
Milica Stojanovic

Heavy mass materials used in building structures and architecture can significantly affect building energy performance and occupant comfort. The purpose of this study was to investigate if thermal mass can improve the internal environment of a building, resulting in lower energy requirements from the mechanical systems. The study was focused on passive building energy performance and compared annual space heating and cooling energy requirements for an office building in Belgrade with several different applications of thermal mass. A three-dimensional building model was generated to represent a typical office building. Building shape, orientation, glazing to wall ratio, envelope insulation thickness, and indoor design conditions were held constant while location and thickness of building mass (concrete) was varied between cases in a series of energy simulations. The results were compared and discussed in terms of the building space heating and cooling energy and demand affected by thermal mass. The simulation results indicated that with addition of thermal mass to the building envelope and structure: 100% of all simulated cases experienced reduced annual space heating energy requirements, 67% of all simulated cases experienced reduced annual space cooling energy requirements, 83% of all simulated cases experienced reduced peak space heating demand and 50% of all simulated cases experienced reduced peak space cooling demand. The study demonstrated that there exists a potential for reducing space heating and cooling energy requirements with heavy mass construction in the analyzed climate region (Belgrade, Serbia).


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 23-46
Author(s):  
Frida Bazzocchi ◽  
Sara Ticci ◽  
Vincenzo Di Naso ◽  
Andrea Rocchetti

In Italy, a large stock of public housing was built during the 1970s and 1980s with industrialized/prefabricated techniques. These buildings have envelopes characterized by the presence of many thermal bridges and low transmittance values. In addition, they feature inefficient single heating systems in residential units and no cooling/ventilation systems. As a result, these buildings require urgent energy retrofitting actions, and it is therefore necessary to define procedures that will guarantee effective results. The possible interventions must be compatible with building construction techniques as well as be minimally invasive and inexpensive. There are only a limited number of technical solutions, considering that residents should not have to move out during the renovations. In most Italian climatic zones, current interventions are usually linked to external insulation and window replacement, leading to an improvement in energy performance and comfort only during winter. Internal comfort conditions tend to worsen in summer months because seasonal temperatures tend to increase by a few degrees. Therefore, solutions should be proposed that will improve both summer and winter conditions. This work proposes an energy recovery procedure applied to a representative building from the abovementioned period located in the Florence area and constructed with an industrialized system named the “tunnel system” (great panels structure). The procedure used in this study provides for the redevelopment of the envelope and the application of a simple mechanical ventilation system to achieve substantial energy savings and improved indoor comfort conditions.


Author(s):  
Hua Chen ◽  
Qianqian Di

To improve the applicability of water-cooled air-conditioners in the domestic sector, the development of a prediction model for energy performance analysis is needed. This paper addressed the development of an empirical model for predicting the operation performance and the annual energy consumption for the use of water-cooled air-conditioners. An experimental prototype was set up and tested in an environmental chamber in validating the empirical model. The predictions compared well with the experimental results. Furthermore, a high-rise residential building whole-year energy consumption simulation on applications of water-cooled air conditioners in South china was also analyzed. The results show 20.4% energy savings over air-cooled units while the increase in water-side consumption is 31.1%. The overall energy savings were estimated at 16.2% when including the additional water costs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 137 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
John L. Sustar ◽  
Jay Burch ◽  
Moncef Krarti

As homes move toward zero energy performance, some designers are drawn toward the solar combisystem due to its ability to increase the energy savings as compared to solar water heater (SWH) systems. However, it is not trivial as to the extent of incremental savings these systems will yield as compared to SWH systems, since the savings are highly dependent on system size and the domestic hot water (DHW) and space heating loads of the residential building. In this paper, the performance of a small combisystem and SWH, as a function of location, size, and load, is investigated using annual simulations. For benchmark thermal loads, the percent increased savings from a combisystem relative to a SWH can be as high as 8% for a 6 m2 system and 27% for a 9 m2 system in locations with a relatively high solar availability during the heating load season. These incremental savings increase significantly in scenarios with higher space heating loads and low DHW loads.


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