energy efficiency

Ambitious goals regarding CO2 neutrality put the energy renovations of apartment buildings in the top places on the energy efficiency & sustainability agenda in Denmark. Improved airtightness and maximum primary energy requirements imply utilization of ventilation with heat recovery. The control of ventilation installed during renovations often considers a whole dwelling as one climate zone, which neglects differences among individual rooms. Increased insulation and tightness leads to higher sensitivity to solar and occupancy gains, moisture loads and pollutants.

Humidity-based DCV systems have been widely used in France for 35 years and are considered as a reference system, including for low-energy residential buildings. The on-going Performance 2 project delivers the new results of a thirteen-year monitoring in twenty-two social housing apartments. The involved consortium is composed of Cerema, Univ. Savoie Mont Blanc and two industrials partners: Aereco and Anjos. 

IEA-EBC Annex 86 “Energy Efficient IAQ Management in residential buildings” aims to propose an integrated rating method for the performance assessment and optimization of energy efficient strategies of managing the indoor air quality (IAQ) in new and existing residential buildings. Our goal is to work in an international collaboration so that the different approaches to design and operation of ventilation in different countries are accounted for.

In order to achieve nearly net zero energy use, both new and energy refurbished existing buildings will in the future need to be still more efficient and optimized. Since such buildings can be expected to be already well insulated, airtight, and have heat recovery systems installed, one of the next focal points to limiting energy consumption for thermally conditioning the indoor environment will be to possibly reducing the ventilation rate, or making it in a new way demand controlled. However, this must be done such that it does not have adverse effects on indoor air quality (IAQ).

Both new and renovated existing buildings will in the future need to be optimized in such a way that can achieve to have nearly no energy use while still providing impeccable indoor climates. Since such buildings can already be assumed to be very well insulated, airtight, and to be equipped with heat recovery systems, one of the next focal points to limiting energy consumption for thermally conditioning the indoor environment will be to possibly reducing the ventilation rate, or to make it in a new way demand controlled.

Many post-occupancy comfort studies of energy renovated residential buildings have documented elevated temperatures above comfort levels, not only during the summer period but also during the shoulder months. The main focus in renovation projects is on heat savings while the risk of overheating is not considered.

Throughout the certification process of air filters, the major technical characteristics are evaluating. Both theoretical models and experimental methods, proves some relationships between the parameters and the performance of product. In this article we present the statistical analysis of certified products according to EN ISO16890:2016. A sample of 1800 certified products by Eurovent Certita Certification is analysed to highlight products characteristics based on quantitative approach.

The current policies and regulatory frameworks in the construction sector aim to improve energy efficiency of new buildings whilst maintaining acceptable level of indoor environmental quality (IEQ) including indoor air quality (IAQ). In practice, however, there are often important trade-offs between these objectives. The aim of this paper is to investigate the concentrations of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in a recently built residential block in the UK and the potential trade-offs between ventilation rates and VOCs.

The European Commission’s Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME)  manages parts of the Horizon 2020 framework programme for research, innovation and market uptake (2014-2020), including for energy efficiency in the buildings sector. The Agency supports projects under this programme and ensures that their results are fed to policymaking teams within the European Commission.  

In the research project 3for2 Beyond Efficiency, low-exergy distributed cooling and ventilation systems for application in the tropics are designed and tested in a demonstrator building in Singapore. The HVAC system designed consists of passive chilled beams for sensible cooling, fan coil units for latent cooling and dedicated outdoor air handling systems for IAQ control. The design reduces building space requirements due to less ventilation equipment.