English

Since the 1992 United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, many countries are now committed to limiting the emissions of greenhouse gases. The HPC's analysis "The Impact of heat Pumps on the Greenhouse Effect" has suggested that heat pumps can make a major contribution towards meeting this commitment, especially with regard to the reduction of Carbon dioxide emissions.

The inventory of organics in the air of a ten year old office building shows a wide variety of natural and synthetical volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Although 240 employees consume 1200 - 1500 cigarettes per day, the effective ventilation system reduces the ETS rapidly, however, aromatic hydrocarbons and some natural compounds still remain in the air in the higher μg/m3-range. Systematic analyses of volatile compounds of all cleansers used shows that they are sources of higher limonene amounts. Aromatics entered by way of "fresh air'' intake near the parking entrance at street level.

The Majrovagen project is the result of a design competition, held by the City of Stockholm and the Swedish Council for Building Research in 1990. The competition is a part of the efforts made by the City to promote efficient energy use and healthy buildings. Efficient energy use will help reduce disruption to the environment, the need for new, expensive energy plants, and, not least, the energy costs of the inhabitants of Stockholm. Three different projects with mu It if amity houses of about 60 apartments each were chosen by a Jury to be built in the same area during 1993.

The aim of the study was to design and build a small house with 50% lower heating energy consumption than in typical existing Finnish small houses. Energy saving is based on three technologies: super insulation, airtight construction and ventilation heat recovery. The first monitoring results show the heating energy consumption of the house to be less than half of the measured consumption of typical small houses located in the same area. Also, the results show the air quality to be good.

Computer-based control systems have been widely used for controlling air-conditioning systems in commercial buildings. Computer-based control technology can increase control accuracy and can implement various sophisticated control strategies so that building energy consumption can be reduced. The problem is not how to implement a control strategy, but which control strategy should be used to control air-conditioning systems in commercial buildings.

Intermittent heating patterns, characteristic of Israel and other countries with a mild winter enable energy · conservation at the expense of very high peak energy consumption; · very low levels of thermal comfort; and surface condensation and mould growth problems. The paper summarizes a research project which included analysis of total daily energy consumption, partial energy during evening (peak) hours, weighted cost of total energy, improved thermal comfort, internal surface temperatures -of the external envelope, and surface temperatures of partitions.

Two identical apartment buildings were built, one in Germany, and one in Sweden, in 1986. The idea was to create energy efficient housing at a low cost, using Swedish building technology and German heating and ventilation technology. The Swedish building code, which is more stringent in terms of energy conservation than the German one, was applied in both countries. The paper examines the performance of the buildings.