Application and validation of a method to assess the energy reduction and environmental impact of renovation alternatives

The renovation of residential stock is one of the most promising areas, in terms of energy reduction, because these buildings are highly inefficient and represent the largest part of the building stock. However, the environmental impact assessment over the life cycle of building renovation is rare. It is more common to develop an assessment for new buildings. This study presents a method that combines the evaluation of the benefits of renovating residential buildings, considering cost, energy and environmental benefits using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The method is based on 3 stages of development. First, the database of energy certificates, costs and LCA was analysed. The second step is to develop a workflow in Rhino/Grasshopper/E-Plus to automatically model a residential building and feed the simulation model with the data obtained from the databases. Finally, a simulation campaign was carried out to obtain an optimal renovation package, minimising energy consumption and environmental impact. The research was carried out in a case study in Uddevalla, Sweden. The residential building has different measurements including energy consumption data before and after renovation. This was used to validate the proposed methodology. The validation shows that accurate results are achievable with potential for mass application

Evaluation of measurement techniques for modelling buildings in energy simulation and labelling tool

The dwellings built between 1945 and 1980 have the largest energy demand in the EU, which by 2009 represented 70% of the final energy use in buildings. A great portion of these dwellings have not been retrofitted and most of them were not built with any energy efficiency measures, since most of the energy regulations were implemented after the oil crisis in the 1970s. The current renovation rate of residential buildings has not reached targeted goals, due to the numerous barriers that arise in the renovation process. The evaluation and labelling of existing residential buildings represent a big challenge, and the lack of geometric information on buildings is one of the main issues hindering an assessment through simulations. Currently, there is no scientific literature that focuses on improving this task. However, the emergence of new technologies from different fields may streamline the geometric data gathering with the modelling task and greatly improve both accuracy and workload. This study focuses on the revision of geometry measurement techniques, based on the application and quantification of the benefits and barriers that these techniques represent for their use in the building simulation and labelling. The techniques tested were Hololens, handheld laser scanner and handheld laser distance measurer. The evaluation considers time, cost and accuracy as well the tasks related to the post process of the data in BIM, which is not mandatory for building simulation, but it provided multiple benefits

Multicriteria Design: Optimizing Thermal, Acoustic, and Visual Comfort and Indoor Air Quality in Classrooms

Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) is a crucial for ensuring comfortable and healthy indoor spaces, and it is influenced by four primary factors: thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, visual comfort, and air quality. These aspects have a combined influence on the overall perception of comfort, and therefore, need to be assessed with a holistic approach. This chapter presents design strategies that would generate the indoor environmental conditions needed to ensure IEQ in school classrooms in the Global South. First, the design strategies are identified and classified for each aspect of IEQ based on a literature review. Then they are organized, and conflicting design strategies are identified. Finally, a design workflow for the incorporation of passive design strategies in school classrooms is presented

Evaluation of cost-effective measures for the renovation of existing dwellings in the framework of the energy certification system: A case study in Norway

The Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) for existing dwellings has not been able to promote the renovation rate. The main reasons are associated with the low quality of the assessment and renovation recommendations provided. These are not able to provide the information or confidence needed to undertake a renovation project. So far, neither reports for the EPBD nor studies by researchers have proposed modifications to the model used to assess existing buildings under the EPBD. The present research proposes a procedure to evaluate, design improvements, store and share data on the renovation process of each building. Specifically, the procedure is based on three steps, the first one is to apply simplified measurements on the dwelling, laser scanning and envelope testing. The second stage, using the electricity consumption data, was to calibrate and calculate the thermal properties of the building. Finally, tailor-made recommendations for the whole life cycle of the house are proposed and stored in a database. After an optimisation and life cycle analysis of different measurement packages. The results show that by incorporating currently available tools, such as scanners, smart meters and BIM, a complete building condition profile can be obtained, stored and shared, and renovation measures with their benefits and costs can be realistically proposed. This study is in line with what has been proposed by previous studies, the need to digitise the certification system, to use new technologies and to capture the trust of the users