High-Performance Integrated Window and Façade Solutions for California

The researchers developed a new generation of high-performance façade systems and supporting design and management tools to support industry in meeting California’s greenhouse gas reduction targets, reduce energy consumption, and enable an adaptable response to minimize real-time demands on the electricity grid. The project resulted in five outcomes: (1) The research team developed an R-5, 1-inch thick, triplepane, insulating glass unit with a novel low-conductance aluminum frame. This technology can help significantly reduce residential cooling and heating loads, particularly during the evening. (2) The team developed a prototype of a windowintegrated local ventilation and energy recovery device that provides clean, dry fresh air through the façade with minimal energy requirements. (3) A daylight-redirecting louver system was prototyped to redirect sunlight 15–40 feet from the window. Simulations estimated that lighting energy use could be reduced by 35–54 percent without glare. (4) A control system incorporating physics-based equations and a mathematical solver was prototyped and field tested to demonstrate feasibility. Simulations estimated that total electricity costs could be reduced by 9-28 percent on sunny summer days through adaptive control of operable shading and daylighting components and the thermostat compared to state-of-the-art automatic façade controls in commercial building perimeter zones. (5) Supporting models and tools needed by industry for technology R&D and market transformation activities were validated. Attaining California’s clean energy goals require making a fundamental shift from today’s ad-hoc assemblages of static components to turnkey, intelligent, responsive, integrated building façade systems. These systems offered significant reductions in energy use, peak demand, and operating cost in California

Climate Responsive Design and the Milam Residence

Energy conservation and efficiency is an essential area of focus in contemporary building design. The perception that the designers of buildings during the Modernist period of architecture ignored these principles is a false one. The present study, an examination of Paul Rudolph’s Milam Residence, a masterpiece of American residential architecture, is part of a larger project endeavoring to create a knowledge base of the environmental performance of iconic modernist homes. A critical examination of the Milam House allows insight into specific design characteristics that impact energy efficiency and conservation. Located in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, the Milam Residence was constructed in 1962. It was the last of a series of Florida residences designed by Rudolph, Chairman of the Department of Architecture at Yale University (1958–1965). The structure’s form is strongly related to its location on a subtropical beachfront. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the building’s solar responsiveness. Specifically, we examine design strategies such as orientation and sunscreening and their effect on daylighting, shading, and heat gain. The analysis is based on parametric energy modeling studies using Autodesk’s Ecotect, an environmental analysis tool that allows simulation of building performance. While the initial target of the program was early design, the program allows the input of complex geometries and detailed programming of zones, materials, schedules, etc. The program\u27s excellent analyses of desired parameters are augmented by visualizations that make it especially valuable in communicating results. Our findings suggest that the building, as built and situated on the site, does take advantage of daylighting and solar shading and does so in both expected and unexpected ways

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The effect of the sun and its path on thermal comfort and energy consumption in residential buildings in tropical climates constitutes serious concern for designers, building owners and users. Passive design approaches based on the sun and its path have been identified as a means of reducing energy consumption, as well as enhancing thermal comfort in buildings worldwide. Hence, a thorough understanding regarding the sun path is key to achieving this. This is necessary due to energy need, poor energy supply and distribution, energy poverty and over-dependence on electric generators for power supply in Nigeria. These challenges call for a change in the approach to energy related issues, especially in terms of buildings. The aim of this study is to explore the influence of building orientation, glazing and the use of shading devices on residential buildings in Nigeria. This is intended to provide data that will guide designers in the design of energy efficient residential buildings. The paper used EnergyPlus software to analyze a typical semi-detached residential building in Lokoja, Nigeria, using hourly weather data for a period of 10 years. Building performance was studied as well as possible improvement regarding different orientations, glazing types and shading devices. The simulation results showed reductions in energy consumption in response to changes in building orientation, types of glazing and the use of shading devices. The results indicate a 29.45% reduction in solar gains and 1.90% in annual operative temperature using natural ventilation only. This shows a huge potential to reduce energy consumption and improve people’s wellbeing using proper building orientation, glazing and appropriate shading devices on building envelope. The study concludes that for a significant reduction in total energy consumption by residential buildings, design should focus on multiple design options rather than concentrating on one or few building elements. Moreover, the investigation confirms that energy performance modelling can be used by building designers to take advantage of the sun and to evaluate various design options

Impact of daylighting on total energy use in offices of varying architectural features in Italy: Results from a parametric study

The growing attention towards the optimization of the overall performance of a building, in terms of both indoor environmental quality and energy consumption, has brought about the need to carry out analyses, which consider the interactions of all affecting parameters. In particular, thermal and daylighting analysis should be carried out in synergy to ensure the best performance in both domains. Within this framework, the paper presents a study on daylighting and energy behavior of rooms with different architectural features. The study has been conceived to account for a broad range of possible configurations of office buildings in the climate site of Turin (Northern Italy), and has been performed through numerical simulations carried out with Daysim and EnergyPlus. The results outline the daylighting performance (in terms of spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA)) and the energy demand for lighting, heating and cooling and demonstrate that optimizing daylighting can lead to a reduction of the total energy demand of an office

Review of simulating four classes of window materials for daylighting with non-standard BSDF using the simulation program Radiance

This review describes the currently available simulation models for window material to calculate daylighting with the program "Radiance". The review is based on four abstract and general classes of window materials, depending on their scattering and redirecting properties (bidirectional scatter distribution function, BSDF). It lists potential and limits of the older models and includes the most recent additions to the software. All models are demonstrated using an exemplary indoor scene and two typical sky conditions. It is intended as clarification for applying window material models in project work or teaching. The underlying algorithmic problems apply to all lighting simulation programs, so the scenarios of materials and skies are applicable to other lighting programs

State-of-the-art on research and applications of machine learning in the building life cycle

Fueled by big data, powerful and affordable computing resources, and advanced algorithms, machine learning has been explored and applied to buildings research for the past decades and has demonstrated its potential to enhance building performance. This study systematically surveyed how machine learning has been applied at different stages of building life cycle. By conducting a literature search on the Web of Knowledge platform, we found 9579 papers in this field and selected 153 papers for an in-depth review. The number of published papers is increasing year by year, with a focus on building design, operation, and control. However, no study was found using machine learning in building commissioning. There are successful pilot studies on fault detection and diagnosis of HVAC equipment and systems, load prediction, energy baseline estimate, load shape clustering, occupancy prediction, and learning occupant behaviors and energy use patterns. None of the existing studies were adopted broadly by the building industry, due to common challenges including (1) lack of large scale labeled data to train and validate the model, (2) lack of model transferability, which limits a model trained with one data-rich building to be used in another building with limited data, (3) lack of strong justification of costs and benefits of deploying machine learning, and (4) the performance might not be reliable and robust for the stated goals, as the method might work for some buildings but could not be generalized to others. Findings from the study can inform future machine learning research to improve occupant comfort, energy efficiency, demand flexibility, and resilience of buildings, as well as to inspire young researchers in the field to explore multidisciplinary approaches that integrate building science, computing science, data science, and social science

Performance Evaluation of Lighting and Daylighting Retrofits: Results from IEA SHC Task 50

AbstractThis article presents some results from a large monitoring campaign performed in 22 buildings around the world as part of International Energy Agency (IEA) Task 50 “Advanced lighting solutions for retrofitting buildings”. This article mainly addresses the work of Subtask D, which aims to demonstrate sound lighting retrofit solutions in a selection of representative, typical Case Studies. In order to evaluate the Case Studies, a monitoring protocol was developed to assess the overall lighting performance taking into consideration: 1) Energy use, 2) Retrofit costs, 3) Photometric assessment, and 4) User assessment. The monitoring was carried out from June 2014 to December 2015 in 22 non-residential buildings in ten countries. This article presents results from selected Case Studies, drawing conclusions regarding retrofit solutions as well as reflecting on methodological procedures for the measurements and data collection. Measured data as well as key conclusions from Subtask D will be summarized in an electronic web and portable sourcebook at the end of the IEA Task 50 (December 2015), which will be freely available through the Internet

Daylighting design for energy saving in a building global energy simulation context

A key factor to substantially reduce the energy consumption for electric lighting consists in a more widespread exploitation of daylight, associated with the use of the most energy efficient lighting technologies, including LEDs or electric lighting controls. At the same time daylight harvesting in indoor spaces can influence the global energy performance of a building also in terms of heating and cooling loads. For this reason, it’s always necessary to account for the balance between daylighting benefits and energy requirements. Furthermore the increasing awareness of the potential benefits of daylight has resulted in an increased need for objective information and data on the impact that different design solutions, in terms of architectural features, can have on the daylighting condition and energy demand of a space. Within this frame the research activity has been focusing on three main aspects: − Analyzing limits and potentials of the current daylighting design practice and proposing synthetic information and tools to be used by the design team during the earliest design stage to predict the daylight condition within a space. − Analyzing the effect of a proper daylighting design approach on energy requirements for electric lighting, associating with the use of efficient lighting technologies and control systems. − Assessing the influence of energy demand for electric lighting on the global energy performance. The methodology that was adopted relies on dynamic simulations carried out with Daysim and EnergyPlus used in synergy to perform a parametric study to assess the indoor daylighting conditions and the energy performance of rooms with different architectural features. Within the first phase the database of results of the lighting analysis was used to assess the sensitivity of new metrics which have been proposed by the scientific community as predictors of the dynamic variation of daylight. Furthermore it was analyzed how indoor daylight can be influenced by room’s architectural features. Than the energy demand for electric lighting for all simulated case studies have been analyzed so as to examine the influence of a proper daylighting design in presence of different lighting control systems. Finally results related to the amount of daylight available in a space were compared with annual energy demand for lighting, heating and cooling to highlight the influence of a proper daylighting design on the global energy performance