English

In the paper we describe an integrated building lighting and thermal simulation activities carried out in the support of EU PV-Light Project. A part of the project has focused on an experimental quantification of a moveable PV solar shading façade modules fitted to the external test cells. An experimental data has been used to calibrate building energy and daylighting simulation models. The calibrated integrated building energy and daylighting models have been used to carry out a multiple runs with the different facades options under a range of the European climate conditions.

Blind systems have been introduced to provide visual and thermal comfort, as well as to reduce energy use in buildings. A wide variety of such systems exist in terms of thermal and optical properties, location (exterior, interior), and physical configuration (size, distance between the blind slats). The current problem with blinds is that their operation is not based on the dynamics of the room (space), but on the static or manual control operated by occupants, although many studies have recognized that dynamic control can far outperform static control.

Shading device, window to wall ratio, window height, and glazing are important factors in determining building energy consumption in the tropics. This study employed the four factors in designing energy-efficient window for classroom to reduce the energy consumption for supplemented lighting and mechanical ventilation. The method was based on Ecotect simulations under some parameters, i.e.  heat gains through the building fabrics, illuminance level, and daylight factor. This study concluded that projected clerestory is the most energy-efficient window design.

Overheating in buildings not only causes discomfort to the occupiers but – if it occurs regularly or over a sustained period – also leads to pressure for the installation of mechanical cooling. In addition to the initial cost and ongoing maintenance requirements of such systems there will be an increase in the overall energy use of the building. This paper investigates the thermal performance of an industrial building (retail shed) with rooflights by means of dynamic computer modelling.

Recent statistics published by Natural Resources Canada estimates that the energy demand for heating and cooling accounts for about 60% of the total energy use of an average Canadian home. Although the overall demand for cooling energy is much lower than the demand for heating, many populated areas experience a peak demand for electricity on summer afternoons. Interior reflective window shading devices have the potential to reduce solar overheating and electricity peak demand in summer, and to improve the thermal comfort of house occupants when seated near windows.

A large variety of simulation environments exists for building and system simulation. Collaborative work is sometimes time-consuming since, in the different steps of building and system conception and optimization, different tools have to be used, each of them specifically dedicated to a particular problem: for example the overall conception of a building can be done using the TRNSYS simulation environment, while optimization of control strategies is likely to be done using the Matlab/Simulink simulation environment.

In a recent building simulation project, the significant effort required to calculate and enter casual gains and air flow data into the ESP-r modelling software was found to impede progress and increase the risk of error. A software tool, implemented as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet using VBA, has been developed that avoids these problems by generating the required ESP-r data files automatically. The use of the spreadsheet had a major impact on project progress.

This paper presents a simple tool (in the form of nomograms) for the preliminary design of solar gains of a window shaded with a horizontal overhang. The nomograms were based on the results obtained from the previously published, experimentally validated anisotropic model of shaded window solar gains and developed using the least squares method. The nomograms were verified using the Design Builder (ver. 1.2) simulation software. The numerical simulations corroborated the relationship between window and shading system dimensions and solar gain reduction in the room.

Aiming to study the temperature field changes, the House VI project was checked. This house is located in Vila37, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a dead-end small street with only one inlet/outlet. In the houses of Vila37, the indoor ventilation is restricted to the facade windows. Giving the impossibility of introducing cross-ventilation in a traditional way, a short wind-catch was previously added with positive results; therefore, simulations with long wind-catch are being carried out.