How can we increase strategies and reduce energy consumption to design buildings? Architects and designers in Colombia believe that using energy efficient solutions will increase building costs.
Basic controls optimisation, commissioning, retrofits, audits, etc are all good ways to reduce consumption. Here is a good resource on commissioning approaches and their cost effectiveness in the USA context: http://www.rmi.org/RFGraph-building_commissioning
However, this is much too broad of a question - there a lot of factors that influence consumption and the possible options to reduce - ie: age of building, usage, climate, installed systems, etc. Its kind of similar to asking 'how can a person improve their health?'
Clayton Thank you. Maybe I can ask you a new question:
What are the most efficent strategies to reduce the climate impact in buildings?
It is true that energy efficient solutions generally increase buildings' costs, but the payback time is much lower than the buildings' life time. You also have to consider the energy payback time and the environmental payback time. You can have a look at my papers:
- F. Asdrubali, C. Baldassarri, V.Fthenakis: “Life Cycle Analysis in the construction sector: guiding the optimization of conventional Italian buildings”, Energy and Buildings, 64 (2013), 73-89.
- F. Asdrubali, C. Buratti, F. Cotana, G.Baldinelli, M. Goretti, E.Moretti, C. Baldassarri, E. Belloni, F. Bianchi, A. Rotili, M.Vergoni, D.Palladino, D. Bevilacqua: “ Evaluation of Green Buildings’ Overall Performance through in Situ Monitoring and Simulations”, Energies, 6 (2013), pp. 6525-6547.
you can download them from Research Gate
The strategy to reduce energy consumption must also take into account the type of buildins : housing, school, office, hospital,...
I suggest you the reading of the ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guides. You can find them in https://www.ashrae.org/standards-research--technology/advanced-energy-design-guides.
Totally agree with above answers. The "most" should be unique to each specific case. One building might have one most efficient factor (for example, using more efficient HVAC system) differentiating with another that has a different most efficient method (for example, simply making the building more airtight).
Designing for saving energy is not necessarily more expensive, especially if you start from the very beginning of the design process. There are a lot of architectural design decisions like building's main orientation or morphology that may have a huge influence in building performance, and not always need extra investments to be implemented.
Dear Rolando,
the building that consumes the least energy is the one that has no energy systems. ;-).
Behind this sentence, there is the most important concept when we deal with the advanced design of a building: an energy statement has no meaning without statements about indoor thermal and visual comfort, which are (some of the) actual objectives of a building design.
So the best way to design an energy efficient building is to concept a building that satisfies requirements about indoor environment using no or little energy for the environmental control. Therefore, the best strategy is to reduce as much as possible the need of mechanical heating and cooling by designing a high performance building envelope, then, if required you have to install high efficiency energy systems well controlled and sized.
Starting from this assumption:
1) in winter dominate climate, a reasonable winning strategy is to reduce heat losses by conduction (by using high thickness of insulating materials and high performance double or triple glazed windows) and by ventilation (by using high efficient hear recovery units coupled with mechanical ventilation systems). Solar gains are useful, but we have to remind that sun is available when outdoor climatical conditions are less critical in a winter dominated climate, so however auxiliary energy is required when the sun is down.
2) in those climates where summer starts to become critical, the problem is much more complex (also under a calculation point of view). In general, in a summer dominated climate, comfort temperatures (that can be calculated according to several comfort models) are lower than outdoor ones, this implies that we have, AT FIRST, to reduce all heat fluxes entering into our building, which would cause an increase of its internal energy and thus of indoor temperatures (air, mean radiant and operative). So, we have to EFFECTIVELY protect all sun facing windows with solar shading devices and reduce energy entering through walls and roof by using high thickness of insulating materials. Then, we can adopt other strategies that can help in controlling indoor temperatures such as the use of exposed thermal mass, that takes energy from indoor air without a high rise of its superficial temperature (due to its high thermal capacity). if night temperatures are sufficiently low (around at least 20°C) we can effectively improve the performance of thermal mass coupling it with a night ventilation of the building.
3) in climate where the main issue is high humidity, the problem is very very critical. the only think you can do is ventilate as much as possible to expel moisture-laden air and if it is not sufficient you have to installa a dehumidification system.
Other more complex passive strategies are also available, but their applicability depends on the specific features of the climate.
I hope it helps you.
Best regards,
Salvatore
Dear all
You may take the surrounding context into considerations as mentioned by Salvatore. In the future, I propose that the surrounding grids, district heating and cooling, smart grid, smart gas grid and other "smart cities" technology will demand an optimization of the demand by buildings to optimize the performance of the overall performance of the system. A building with much flexibility will be more valuable than the low-energy building. These considerations are at an early research stage. We have started a research endeavor CITIES to investigate such issues http://smart-cities-centre.org, an international strategic research centre. We would like to cooperate on such issues.
Regards, (Al)Fred
Question too broad, depends on context etc. However as previously pointed out, first step that does not increase cost of building are passive solutions (orientation, [solar harvesting if in cold climate], earth coupling, natural ventilation through design, hybrid solutions, smart means of matching demand to supply etc). The question perhaps needs to be narrowed down or modified to get a clear answer.
Papers mentioned above are good examples.
Understanding how, when, and where energy is consumed in buildings is the very first step to developing strategies to reduce the energy consumption. For example, if lights are left on during night, turn them off to save energy!
Insulation and air sealing are always effective at saving energy when done properly, and they are usually the most cost effective measures. Only when a building is well insulated will it begin to effectively take advantage of solar orientation, add some thermal mass to store the sun's energy and it becomes even more effective. Once the insulation and glazing strategy is chosen, you can model for a heat/cool load. The higher the insulation the smaller the systems. It is quite simple really. The biggest challenge is having a team, both in design and construction, that communicates effectively, and is focused on the simplest systems possible to achieve the desired comfort level.
So, I think Salvatore Carlucci said it best, no heating system is the most efficient.
This still only addresses heating and cooling. Buildings also use energy in lighting, appliances and other mechenicals. Are there any lighting experts here?
I fully agree with Salvatore Carlucci.
the most effective way to improve energy efficiency without reducing the indoor environment quality is to design the building so that the expectations of the users are, as much as possible, satisfied with passive measures, that is without other energy sources than the environment and the sun. Examples are thermal insulation, thermal inertia, daylighting, natural or stack ventilation, passive solar heating during the cold season, passive cooling in warm season, moveable solar protections, etc.
One approach is to look at PassivHaus (which has extreme goals for reductions in heating and cooling demands) and then consider how these patterns can be applied within the resource and skills constraints of Colombia. There are some good ideas which can be applied for minimal cost and also look at the impact of quality detailing.
The answer of Jon is very valuable. However, the PassivHaus concept was developped in Germany for a relatively cold country. It mainly address thermal insulation, i.e. protecting the indoor climate from the outdoor one. Its application to other climates should be studied with care. Indeed, in some climates, it may be very useful to work with the climate instead of against.
Dear All,
In very general terms, one should:
first, analyse the climate where your building isto be located,
second, use a building fabric with the appropiate dynamyc properties,
third, passive design (solar/natural ventilation) to gain heat/remove heat.
However, to this I would add an analysis of the building projected some years ahead to verify its resilience to climate change.
Cheers,
Linda
PS. By the way, I love simple questions because they bring you to the big picture of the problem.
Based on the usage there are many solutions. If the solutions are implemented during the design the cost is significant lower. The cost differences depend on the solutions choosen and local market. Many examples can be found in EU pages related to energy efficiency where there also market data, but these are for EU. You must define better your question.
Dear researchers: thank you very much. Your answers help me a lot. Now I'm working in a research about resilience technology applied to buildings design, so I wold like to talk this topic with all. Please wait a next question soon.
Energy efficient buildings do not need to be expensive. There are a few first steps in reduction strategies that cost nothing: Orientation, solar harvesting, reduction of heat loss in case of Bogota for example.
If one carried out simulation/ energy modeling, it is easy to determine before hand what would work and what level of savings will be associated with the proposed solutions. For example, for Bogota's climate, thermal mass and natural ventilation will provide comfort most year round. There are however cold months that will need energy input, hence a good envelope (air tight and well insulated or thick thermal mass) should be able to allow for internal gains to moderate temperature to fairly comfortable levels.
In addition, use of natural lighting as much as possible will reduce energy consumption for lighting needs during the day as wells as allow for natural ventilation (use shallow plans rather than deep plans). Building could easily be coupled to ground source heating, simple once at level of foundation, just 1.3 meters deep.
Smart metering of resource consumption,(water and electricity, gas etc), display on consumption data to consumers/ users of the building (in any case it is people who consume the energy of the buildings).
The list of what can be done is long, depends on case by case basis.
Thanks for all answers they are very useful to me . and special thanks to professor Claude-Alain Roulet, his books and publications are very helpful and inspiring to me specially those concerned with natural ventilation, and I'm very pleased to have him here in this conversation .
Its good to begin energy-optimized building design by collecting data :
- Site (macro scale, intermediate scale and micro scale)
- regional climate (wind speed, direction, relative humidity, temperature, thermal comfort zone , predicted mean vote, sun path and solar exposure and so on) and the potentials to use passively use them .
- local materials and the potential of using them.
in the early design phase you should make the proper simulation to combine all these factors and compare them with other alternatives and then the optimal design should be selected.
It may be initially expensive to depend on these means but on the long term, it may be less expensive . all these factors should be taken into account .
I fully agree with Mr. Abdelrahman. As far aspossible, every decision taken from the earliest design phases should be taken on the basis of documented consequences of the possible alternatives. Simulation tools now allow the assessment of such consequences. Important is also to list the design criteria that will be used for optimisation. Obviously, if energy is the ONLY criterion, the best is to NOT make the building! Important other criteria are the use of the building (built areas, volumes, programme) and occupant's comfort criteria.
I think urban solutions are very effective
Please check the attached link
kind regards
Article Effect of housing density on energy efficiency of buildings ...
In the case of my country Ecuador, located in the center of the planet, mainly technology that improves lighting efficiency.
-Using strategies and reduce energy consumption
-adaptation of solar energy
-using leed standards and applications
-awareness and awareness of energy consumption saving
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