English

The installation of central mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) in renovated apartment buildings presents considerable challenges, primarily due to insufficient space for ductwork. Consequently, many renovation projects are installing decentralised MVHR units, catering to individual apartments. Many of these devices offer the option of communicating with their controllers via Modbus, BACnet, KNX, or internet APIs, provided the necessary resources are available for the connection.

The progressive digitalization is providing more and more measurement data from building operation, in particular from heating, cooling and ventilation (HVAC) systems. This work investigates the potential use of data-driven models to simulate indoor environmental conditions, i.e. temperature and CO2 concentration, for fault detection applications.

Since 2018, Renson has introduced a range of cloud-connected residential ventilation systems, including central and decentral mechanical extract ventilation (MEV), as well as fully mechanical systems with heat recovery (MVHR) (see Fig. 1). These systems incorporate smart control mechanisms that utilize different IAQ sensors (CO2, VOC, RH), to adjust the airflow rate(s) locally or centrally to the detected needs. The IAQ sensors are located at the control valves or at the central unit, but not within the rooms.

The Performance 2 project (2020-2024) is a French national research project that aims to evaluate the durability of Humidity-based Demand Controlled Ventilation (DCV) systems installed in two multi-family social housing buildings (Paris and Villeurbanne) over than 10 years ago. This evaluation includes the analysis of continuous measurements performed on the ventilation system (sensors located close to the air terminal devices) and two additional Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) campaigns including two other monitors placed in the “dry” rooms conducted in 13 dwellings.

This paper investigates the impact of ventilative cooling in residential buildings constructed from light-weight cross-laminated timber. Different temperature-controlled ventilative cooling concepts such as single sided ventilation, cross-ventilation and thermal stack based chimney ventilation concepts are simulated and compared in terms of impact on indoor temperature and robustness to external conditions such as the surroundings and the building orientation.

Heatwaves are extreme events that will become more frequent and intense with climate change. Maintaining a comfortable and healthy indoor environment becomes crucial during these periods. The occupants are not just passive individuals who undergo the evolution of their environment. They can act to ensure their thermal comfort, in particular by opening or closing windows in summer.

Due to climate change, Western Europe is experiencing a surge in cooling demand, leading to higher summer temperatures accompanied by longer and stronger heat waves, thereby intensifying the toll on our buildings. This signals the need for architects to design buildings that take advantage of passive technics to provide thermal comfort. In recent years, natural ventilation has become a widely used method for reducing energy consumption and expenses. However, the utilization of natural ventilation can be restricted due to heatwaves and the impacts of climate change.

Due to its high demands regarding indoor environmental conditions, healthcare facilities are associated with high energy consumption. To move forward towards more demand driven and energy reduced conditioning, information on occupancy and temperature boundary conditions are crucial. Thermography-based systems enable data acquisition regarding both aspects in high local resolution. In this publication, we propose a thermography system that may be used for monitoring of rooms in healthcare facilities.

Urban settings and climate change both impact energy use, thermal comfort and ventilation of buildings. This is more noticeable in hot urban areas where the urban heat island effect is more pronounced; also, in densely built urban areas where thermal comfort in naturally ventilated buildings is affected by changes in natural ventilation rates because of surrounding obstructions. In some cases, overshadowing might alleviate the impact.

The future needs of indoor spaces in our buildings are likely to be cooling focused. With the widespread use of air-conditioning (AC) on the horizon there is now a need to ensure our systems perform as renewables (under the relevant definitions). A key part of tackling the uptake in energy intensive AC is likely to be the balancing of AC with renewable natural and mechanical ventilative cooling (VC).