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EU Member States have been developing policies and measures to generally reduce the actual energy use of their buildings. Member States are called to properly implement and enforce the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive recast (2010/31/EU) without compromising the comfort, health and productivity of their occupants.
The objective of this rep...
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Citations
... The introduction of minimum energy performance requirements is a basic condition to minimise the energy and environmental footprint of the building stock. However, targeting the decarbonisation 2050 goals (European Commission, 2019), the high-energy efficient building plays a crucial role in greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction, but the health, the different domains of environmental comfort (thermal, acoustic, lighting, and indoor air quality), and productivity of the occupants should be considered in the EU legislative framework (Kephalopoulos et al., 2017). ...
... Therefore, energy and health are two conflicting issues in the air change rate strategy. The Southern European building stock is dominated by naturally and adventitiously ventilated dwellings, in contrast with mechanically or balanced ventilated ones, representing most of the housing stock in northern and central Europe [8]. The former ventilation strategies solely depend on the natural forces of temperature gradient and wind. ...
... Regarding health concerns, the minimum limits imposed or recommended by different countries greatly diverge [8], ranging from 0.3 h -1 to 1.0 h -1 limits ( Table 2). Table 2. Minimum air change rates (ACH) in dwellings (adapted from [8]) ...
... Regarding health concerns, the minimum limits imposed or recommended by different countries greatly diverge [8], ranging from 0.3 h -1 to 1.0 h -1 limits ( Table 2). Table 2. Minimum air change rates (ACH) in dwellings (adapted from [8]) ...
Energy efficiency and indoor air quality are frequently-two conflicting objectives when establishing the air change rate (ACH) of a dwelling. In Europe, the northern countries have a clear focus on energy conservation, leading to an obvious awareness of the importance of airtightness, which translates into a high level of regulation and implementation. Meanwhile, the southern counterparts experience a more complex challenge by having predominantly passive ventilation strategies and milder climates, which often results in a more permissive approach.
This work proposes an innovative labelling methodology to classify the performance of naturally ventilated dwellings. A representative sample of a southern European national built stock is used in a stochastic process to create a pool of 43,200 unique dwellings. The simulation period refers to a month of the typical heating season in the southern European mild conditions. The results test the labelling methodology. With feature selection, ACH limits, and a labelling strategy, dwellings classify according to their ability to provide adequate ACHs.
The terrain was the best splitter of the dataset from the applied categorical variables. Regarding continuous variables, the airtightness was the one explaining most of the variability of the outputted ACHs, followed by the floor area. From the best performing dwellings labelled as compliant (Com), the average airtightness level was 5.3 h⁻¹, with 4.9 h⁻¹ and 5.8 h⁻¹ in rural and urban locations.
... In the European Union (EU) directives, the role played by energy efficiency in buildings is clear and well-defined [12,13]: it already contains approaches that must favor both the improvement of energy consumption and the IAQ. To emphasize the potential inherent in energy efficiency measures, the EU has committed itself through recommendations (2016 and 2019 to name a few) to clarify the purpose of the interventions. ...
Recently, there has been a great increase in the importance of issues related to energy efficiency [...]
... However, thermal comfort constitutes only a part of IEQ since it also depends on additional factors, such as indoor air quality (IAQ), lighting quality, visual and acoustic comfort. For example, evidence exists that mechanical ventilation systems lead to an overall improvement of the IAQ and reduction of reported comfort and health-related problems (Kephalopoulos, Geiss, Barrero-Moreno, D'Agostino, & Paci, 2016). To predict the air quality an occupancy model needs to be developed, e.g., based on statistical data or available measurements (Jorissen, Boydens, & Helsen, 2017). ...
It has been proven that advanced building control, like model predictive control (MPC), can notably reduce the energy use and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. However, despite intensive research efforts, the practical applications are still in the early stages. There is a growing need for multidisciplinary education on advanced control methods in the built environment to be accessible for a broad range of researchers and practitioners with different engineering backgrounds. This paper provides a unified framework for model predictive building control technology with focus on the real-world applications. From a theoretical point of view, this paper presents an overview of MPC formulations for building control, modeling paradigms and model types, together with algorithms necessary for real-life implementation. The paper categorizes the most notable MPC problem classes, links them with corresponding solution techniques, and provides an overview of methods for mitigation of the uncertainties for increased performance and robustness of MPC. From a practical point of view, this paper delivers an elaborate classification of the most important modeling, co-simulation, optimal control design, and optimization techniques, tools, and solvers suitable to tackle the MPC problems in the context of building climate control. On top of this, the paper presents the essential components of a practical implementation of MPC such as different control architectures and nuances of communication infrastructures within supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems. The paper draws practical guidelines with a generic workflow for implementation of MPC in real buildings aimed for contemporary adopters of this technology. Finally, the importance of standardized performance assessment and methodology for comparison of different building control algorithms is discussed.
... The final energy consumption of buildings is mainly dedicated to heating and cooling, so their decarbonization is fundamental [1,2,[14][15][16]. The energy efficiency requirements for buildings have been gradually increased towards nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB) [1], expressed in the European Directives [17][18][19], for new [20] and existing buildings in order to get in 2050 a decarbonized building stock, so existing buildings must also move towards nZEB [14,15]. ...
... Ninety-seven percent of the existing buildings built before 2010 require a partial or total refurbishment in order to fulfil the objectives for 2050. Following the goal "Putting energy efficiency first" [3] implies to admit that the most cheap and clean energy is the energy that does not need to be produced or used [1,19,20]. Added to this is the fact that 50 million Europeans live in energy poverty conditions, due to the effort of paying high energy bills in order to keep their inefficient homes comfortable [2]. ...
... A decarbonized, resource-efficient, and circular building stock requires an integral assessment of the proposals, for new and refurbishment of existing buildings, under the point of view of energy efficiency and resource efficiency during the life cycle to achieve clean indoor air and thermal, luminous, and acoustic comfort [20]. ...
In recent years, the building sector has been turning towards intervening in the existing city building stock. In fact, it is generally accepted that the refurbishment of buildings based on sustainability must form the axis of reformulation of the building sector. Although energy refurbishment is commonly accepted and recommended towards decarbonization of the building stock, an integral assessment towards implementing the principles of the circular economy must incorporate the environmental impact of the materials in order to get an eco-efficient refurbishment. The article presents the environmental analysis of a social housing located in Cadiz (Spain) and the improvements achieved by its refurbishment. This intervention is improved by incorporating eco-efficient materials based on the environmental and life cycle analysis (LCA). Those analyses are performed using EnergyPlus, Radiance, LCA standards, and Environmental Product Declaration of the products. The results shown that although an energy rehabilitation intervention can fulfil other eco-efficient aspects, an integral assessment should always be carried out in order to ensure that indoor comfort is achieved, daylighting and solar heat gains are balanced, and the environmental impact at product, use, and end-of-life stages of a building is minimized. Considering the constrains and limitations of the tools and databases, higher efforts should be done to solve them and provide useful resources for a decarbonized and circular building stock.
... In European commission, healthy and highly energy efficient buildings have been discussion in order to define requirement of indoor environment to ensure that energy efficient buildings according to the energy performance building directive (EPBD) [3,4]. ...
In this study, a solar powered mechanical ventilation unit has investigated and tested in terms of efficiency and performance. Test unit can be divided into two parts, the first one is ventilation unit with 370 m3/h max airflow rate and max 167 W fan power provides fresh air for a residency and recovers heat from the climatized exhaust air. Total area is 70 m ² for the residency and total occupant is four. The second part of the test system is solar energy power system with two 325 W polycrystalline photovoltaic panels, an inverter and two batteries. The mechanical ventilation unit has energized by a solar photovoltaic system; if the solar energy is not available then ventilation unit has connected to the national electricity grid. This is an alternative option to consumers to use electricity by the grid in case the PV system does not produce enough energy because of the usage or the technical problems or the weather conditions based on the seasons. On the other hand, in some cities, number of photovoltaic panels rolled up upper number according to solar energy potential and therefore resulted excess electricity has assumed to sell to the national grid. According to the results, the test system is able to operate at maximum ventilation necessity and power consumption without grid connection in Izmir. Furthermore, we have compared Izmir and Romania in accordance with feasibility for the same mechanical ventilation system at max flow rate and required ventilation rate is determined depends on daily usage scenario of the room.
... In the literature, several studies focus on the assessment of the indoor microclimate to guarantee internal comfort, preserve the human health or heritage, and improve the productivity of workplaces [47][48][49]. For example, Seppänen et al. [50,51] highlight that a decrease in productivity in indoor environments of 2% per °C increases the air temperature in a range of 25-32 °C. ...
Finding the most appropriate configuration of building components at the design stage can reduce energy consumption in new buildings. This study aims to optimize the design of the envelope of a new residential building located in a warm climate (southern Italy). The thermal behaviour of the building has been analysed to evaluate the indoor operative air temperature for several configurations. The building prototype has been modelled using the dynamic simulation software TRNSYS 17 (A transient system simulation program, University of Wisconsin, Solar Energy Laboratory, USA, 2010) using a sequential search technique. Starting from the simplest building configuration, the main evaluated components are: walls, slab-on-ground floor, roof, shading, windows and internal heat loads. For each of these components, different design options have been modelled and compared in terms of indoor thermal comfort. Comfort parameters have also been taken into account to evaluate users’ satisfaction with the optimized configurations. The study of the operative air temperature demonstrates that the absence of insulating layers in the ground floor ensures a lower internal temperature in summer. The paper shows how each component impacts the thermal behaviour of the whole building. It highlights the usefulness of the envelope design optimization that is characterized by high values of heat storage capacity, enabling internal temperature fluctuations to be kept under control, especially during summer.
The trend in energy consumption, with a particular focus on heating and cooling demand, is an issue that is relevant to the promotion of new energy policies and more efficient energy systems. Moreover, heating and cooling energy demand is expected to rise in the next several decades, mainly due to climate change as well as increasing incomes in developing countries. In this context, the building sector is currently a relevant energy-intensive economic sector in Morocco; it accounts for 33% of the country’s total energy demand (as the sector with the second highest energy demand, after the transport sector), with the residential sector accounting for 25% and the tertiary sector accounting for 8%. Aiming to reduce energy dependence and promote sustainable development, the Moroccan government recently issued a comprehensive plan to increase the share of renewables and improve energy efficiency. This strategy includes novel thermal building regulations promoted by the Moroccan Agency for Energy Efficiency. This paper analyzes the thermal behavior and heating-cooling energy demand of a residential building located in Tangier (Morocco) as a case example, based on the country’s new thermal regulations and considering specific climatological conditions. A comparison with common Moroccan residential buildings as well as with those in nearby countries with similar meteorological conditions but significant differences in terms of energy demand regulation and requirements, such as Spain, is also included. Simulations were carried out using the DesingBuilder and EnergyPlus Software packages. According to the results, the last building thermal regulation requirements in Morocco need to be revised and extended in order to achieve the energy efficiency objectives established by the Moroccan government for 2030.
Combining cost-optimal solutions to reach nearly zero energy buildings (NZEBs) in compliance with European policies is an ongoing challenge. Energy consumption can be reduced evaluating different configurations at the design stage and implementing the most appropriate solutions according to the building and the location.
This paper develops a simulation-based optimization framework of cost-optimal choices and energy efficiency measures for new buildings. It combines energy and cost simulations using a sequential search technique to find the most effective combination of energy efficiency and renewable energy measures starting from a base configuration. The model is applied to a residential building prototype, taking into consideration hourly climatic data, construction methods, cost data and energy consumption. A cost database and a library of potential measures, related to envelope, appliances and systems, have been established and used within the optimization process. The potential impact of climate change on the estimated cooling loads has been included in the calculations.
The paper shows the feasibility of European requirements for new NZEBs located in different cities. It describes how to best achieve the NZEB design at the lowest cost in 14 locations across Europe. Results highlight how the cost-optimal measures vary with climate and how in each location final selected options differ. Insulation and building tightness appear essential in colder climates, while efficient appliances and lighting are key measures in warmer locations. A key finding of the research is that a source energy reduction of 90% and beyond is feasible for new constructions in all locations. Results also show how efficient lighting and appliances considerably impact the building energy performance. The importance of integrating renewables and energy efficiency measures is confirmed as crucial to reach the NZEBs target.
