English

Heat losses in collective heat distribution systems can be reduced significantly in well-insulated and well-controlled low-temperature networks. However, this reduction is not always rewarded for in legislative energy performance of building standards in Europe. In this paper, simplified heat loss calculation methods (SCM) are compared to dynamic simulations for networks that distribute heat for both space heating and domestic hot water to low-energy houses.

This paper describes the California Simulation Engine (CSE), a public domain, multi-zone, short-time step, detailed annual building simulation application developed to support the 2013 California Title 24 residential energy standards.  CSE implements state-of-the-art algorithms including an MRT-based zone representation, a coupled airflow network, and simple HVAC models.  In addition to summarizing CSE modeling methods, the paper presents a preliminary comparison of simulation results to data measured under the Central Valley Research Home project currently underway in California. 

Earth-air heat exchangers can be considered as one of the current responses to the problem of rational use of energy and comfort in buildings. The aim of the Effipuits project is to validate the thermal performance of this solution experimentally and numerically for an oceanic climate. The modelling of an earth-air heat exchanger is considered through a critical review of the various tools. Then, the paper discusses the energy performance of an installation. Based on experimental site characteristics, two simulation tools were used, DesignBuilder / EnergyPlus and Pleiades + Comfie®.

As high performance design is becoming more desirable in the field of architecture, the need for supporting architects with environmental analysis tools is also growing. Rhino/Grasshopper is one of the most widely used platforms that are used by designers today. There are already a number of environmental plugins developed for Rhino/Grasshopper. However, Ladybug offers several advantages that are currently not offered by existing Rhino/Grasshopper related environmental design plugins.

The quality of a residential complex is based on numerous factors such as their access, privacy, legibility, appearance. Arrangement of the building blocks  and their influence on each other are also important parameters for evaluating the large residential design project . On the other hand, an important criterion for sustainable design is to take advantage of sustainable energies.

This paper deals with the energy man-agement problem of a railway station. This problem comes out from the VEGEP project whose goal is to prove the benefit of an energy manager in railway sta-tions. The project focuses on an existing railway sta-tion with electric appliances and complex HVAC com-posed of micro-cogeneration system, gaz boiler, ther-mal storage tank and heat spreaders. The model has been used to compute best energy management strate-gies that minimizes a compromise between dissatis-faction and costs.

At the Passivhaus of Cherasco, located in Pianura Padana (Italy), an earth to air heat exchanger (EAHE) and natural night ventilation (in summer) are used to deliver comfort conditions with very low energy consumption. One  year and a half of continuous measurements have been carried out in order to evaluate the energy and comfort performances of this building, which combines the Passivhaus concept with local architectural solutions. We present an analysis of the system constituted by building envelope and EAHE.

The paper documents an ongoing study in the use of Building Performance Simulation (BPS) as a source of feedback in the early stages of architectural design. Taking advantage of the specific affordances provided by parametric scripting for design, fine-grained data about design evolution is gathered from a group of ar-chitecture students. Through the use of computational tools for data analysis, the aim is to gain understand-ing into patterns of scripting in conjunction with BPS.