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The future is well-isolated buildings with low heating demand. The first office building in Norway satisfying the passive house standard, the GK environmental house in Oslo, was taken into use in August 2012.
Low energy building is the standard for new buildings according to the building codes today, and since passive house standard seems to be included in the building codes in Norway from 2015 there is a great change in the building industry. To meet the low energy concept, the ventilation industry must cope with a massive change from use of installations with constant air volume (CAV) to demand controlled ventilation.
At the same time new technology with active air handling units makes new ventilation systems more flexible to demand controlled ventilation and temperature control, air velocity and draft. The low heating demand in future buildings address the question – is it possible to use simplified heating systems, or even only air heating without any backup heating system, also for the coldest days in Norway and still have satisfied users?
However, given the cold climate in Norway, totally eliminating a backup heating system for the coldest days and only use overheated supply air would be a tough decision without proper documentation.
The R & D project "Simplified demand controlled air conditioning in office buildings with very low heating demand" will develop concepts for ventilation based space heating fit to buildings with very low heating demand, as well as develop documentation on the function and the conditions that must be fulfilled. (www.sintef.no/projectweb/For-Klima). The project period is three years, starting 2013. This paper reviews the results so far.
So far a broad range of studies have been done: Field measurements and intervention studies with user survey on perceived indoor climate at GK environmental house, laboratory measurements, calculations and theoretical evaluations. This paper discusses the results so far after the first winter period. These are preliminary results that will have to be confirmed by further studies next winter.