Marleen Spiekman

TNO | tno · Centre for Technical Sciences

Arising the Nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) concept in Europe, the solar district heating systems (SDHS) present a potential solution to meet the buildings sector's European energy performance directive. Nevertheless, current practices face several technological and economical barriers to ensure service quality. In this context, our work presen...

Assembling the knowledge, tools, and skills to reliably determine the (Heat Transfer Coefficient) HTC of a dwelling was a main driver for Annex 71. However, research has been carried out in this area for several years. What has set this work apart was the idea of measurement of the HTC using cost effective data, such as smart meters and on-board de...

The heat transfer coefficient (HTC) is a very important factor influencing the energy performance of a building. Recent studies have shown the importance of on-site measurements of the HTC in reducing the performance gap in buildings. However, its measurement setup and calculation procedures are known to be intense and complex. Due to this, many st...

The nearly zero-energy buildings (nZEB) present a promising contribution to fulfill the EU sustainable future targets. However, the construction industry that leads the development of nZEB is facing challenges to guarantee its performance. In this context, this paper proposes a methodology framework based on Multizone Resistance–Capacitance Model t...

Mensgericht ontwerpen gebeurt onvoldoende bij de ontwikkeling van binnenklimaatsystemen voor bijvoorbeeld het verwarmen en ventileren van woningen. Het gevolg is dat voorspelde systeemprestaties niet worden gehaald en bewoners ontevreden zijn over hun comfort in huis. Dit artikel beschrijft een methode die is ontwikkeld en getest om mensen een meer...

In order to drive forward the energy transition, construction companies and other suppliers of deep retrofitting solutions have started to give guarantees on the energy performance of very energy efficient houses. With these initiatives, a need has arisen for methods that can assess per household the actual energy performance during the use phase....

Generally, a discrepancy is observed between energy use for heating of dwellings, calculated by numerical models and actual energy use. This gap may be partially attributed to differences between assumed and actual occupant behavior. To account for the gap, a number of occupant behavioral models were made on thermostat settings, the likelihood that...

A next generation of models is needed to guarantee energy performances of buildings and systems in practice. Current energy performance models use assumptions on climate, user behavior, characteristics of building and systems that may deviate from reality. Improvement of the accuracy of these models and assumptions is necessary to better predict th...

The effects of pre-set environmental conditions of temperature and lighting on the preferred personal settings, comfort experience and task performance of office workers were investigated in an individually controlled workstation. Twenty subjects performed standardized tasks at a prototype workstation with individually controlled radiant heating an...

Background Ventilation in dwellings is essential for well-being and health. However, insight in determinants of ventilation behavior is still limited. Aim Identifying determinants of ventilation behavior and quantifying relationships. Secondly, identifying households characteristics associated with low ventilation activity. Methods In a cross sec...

This handbook holistically summarizes the principles of energy retrofitting historic buildings, from the first diagnosis to the adequately designed intervention: preservation of the historic structure, user comfort, and energy efficiency. The content was developed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers. The wide range of different expertise, d...

Comfort complaints, such as high or low temperatures, lack of privacy and concentration loss, are regularly reported in today's offices. Most comfort aspects, such as lighting, ventilation, decoration, and climate are regulated on global level, while for optimail comfort experience customized settings on personal level is desired, which requires a...

Social embodied agents may mitigate moments of apathy and confusion that older adults can experience at home. Based on a literature study, use cases, requirements and claims were specified. In an experiment with 29 older adults (aged 70+), it was studied to what extent a virtual agent and three robots (i.e., the Nao, iCat and Nabaztag) provide a pl...

The results of a literature review into user behaviour characteristics in relation to Dutch household energy use are reported. In succession, an extended probabilistic parameter study into the influence of variation of user related parameters on energy use has been executed. The probabilistic tool developed for the study will deliver characteristic...

The European Commission has mandated CEN to produce a set of standards to support Member States for the national implementation of the EPBD. This paper focuses on one of these standards, EN ISO 13790, "Energy performance of buildings -Calculation of energy use for space heating and cooling". It describes the history of this standard which started w...

The European Energy Performance in Building Directive (EPBD) requires methods for the calculation of the energy performance for use in the context of building regulations. The paper describes the rationale behind the development of a simple monthly method for the calculation of the energy needs for heating and cooling of buildings, and positions th...

The water extraction out of mortar during brick laying was studied using nuclear magnetic resonance. The experiments show that using a fired-clay brick, the water is extracted out of the mortar within 3 minutes, whereas in the case of a sand-lime brick this takes about 10 minutes. Prewetting a fired-clay brick hardly affects the water extraction, w...

The International Organization for standardization (ISO), Technical Committee 163 "Thermal Performance and Energy Use in the Built Environment" (ISO/TC 163) has produced and will produce sets of standards by reference to which performance requirements can be expressed at various levels, from materials to complete buildings. A coherent set of new wo...

ENPER -EXIST is a project in the framework of the 'Intelligent Energy - Europe' Programme (IEE) of the European Commission. The main goal of ENPER-EXIST is to de-fragment technical and non technical work performed on existing building to support the take off the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD, Directive 2002/91/EC). Then, based on...

One of the topics studied in the European IEE-ASIEPI project (www.asiepi.eu) is the way envelope airtightness is dealt with in the EPB-regulations of the Member States. To this end, a number of surveys have been made among the participating countries. Also a quantitative comparison on a sample building has been performed. The results of this study...