Thermal performance of office building envelopes: the role of window-to-wall ratio and thermal mass in Mediterranean and Oceanic climates
Abstract
Tertiary sector buildings and office buildings in particular, are significant energy consumers and to that end can attain significant improvement in their energy efficiency. In order to achieve this rethinking of the building design process is needed leading to an optimization of the building’s energy demand in order to establish good indoor environmental quality conditions. The right decisions have to be taken from the early stages of design in order to achieve the best possible energy performance of the building, which makes the rational design even more vital. The main objective of this paper is to present the results of the research on the parameters that mostly influence the building envelope’s energy performance for Mediterranean and Oceanic climatic conditions, according to the Köppen climate classification. The study investigates how two factors -thermal mass and window to wall ratio - influence the building’s energy performance. A parametric study on those variables is carried out by means of dynamic simulation in order to evaluate their influence for Thessaloniki, Greece, and Nicosia, Cyprus, which feature a Mediterranean climate and also London, United Kingdom, and Munich, Germany, which feature an Oceanic climate. The results are discussed in order to draw conclusions on the influence of each parameter.References
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[2] Papadopoulos A.M. (2007), Energy cost and its impact on regulating the buildings’ energy behaviour, Advances in Building Energy Research 1, 105-121.
[3] Impact of building shape on thermal performance of office buildings in Ku-wait, Adnan AlAnzi, Donghyun Seo, Moncef Krarti (2009), Energy Conversion and Management, 50, 3, 822–828.
[4] Nasrollahi F. (2010), Window Area in Office Buildings from the viewpoint of Energy Efficiency”, BauSIM 2010 (Building Performance Simulation in a Changing Environment), Third German-Austrian IBPSA Conference, Vienna University of Technology, 2010.
[5] Anđelković B., Stojanović B., Stojiljković M., Janevski J., Stojanović M. (2012), Thermal mass impact on energy performance of a low, medium and heavy mass building in Belgrade, Themal Science, 16, 2, 447-459.
[6] Chu M., Li X., Lu J., Hou X. and Wang X. (20120) Comparative Study of Heat Transfer in Double Skin Facades on High-Rise Office Building in Jakarta, Applied Mechanics and Materials, 170 – 173, 2751-2755.
[7] Chua K.J., Chou S.K. (2010), An ETTV-based approach to improving the energy performance of commercial buildings, Energy and Buildings, 42, 4, 491–499.
[8] Gratia Ε., De Herde Α. (2003) Design of low energy office buildings, , Ene-gy and Buildings, 35, 5, Pages 473–491.
[9] Pfafferott J., Herkel S., Wambsganß M. (2004) Design, monitoring and evaluation of a low energy office building with passive cooling by night ventilation, Energy and Buildings, 36, 5, 455–465.
[10] Becker R., Paciuk M, (2002), Interrelated effects of cooling strategies and building features on energy performance of office buildings, Energy and Buildings, 34, 1, 25–31.
[11] Köppen-Geiger climate classification, Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci., 11, 1633–1644, 2007, www.hydrol-earth-syst-sci.net/11/1633/2007/, last accessed September 2012.
[12] G. Markogiannakis, G. Giannakidis, L. Lampropoulou, Implementation of the EPBD in Greece, Status Report, November 2010, Concerted Action Energy Performance of Buildings Centre for Renewable Energy Sources and Saving (CRES).
[13] C. Xichilos, N. Hadjinicolaou, Implementation of the EPBD in Cyprus, Status Report November 2010, Concerted Action Energy Performance of Buildings, Energy Service – Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism.
[14] P. Woods, Implementation of the EPBD in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, Status Report November 2010, Concerted Action Energy Performance of Buildings, AECOM Ltd.
[15] H. P. Schettler – Köhler, S. Kunkel, Implementation of the EPBD in Germany, Status Report November 2010, Concerted Action Energy Performance of Buildings, Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning.
[16] Energy Plus Documentation, Version 7.1, Documentation, October 2011.
[17] Doukas, H., Nychtis, C., & Psarras, J. (2009). Assessing energy-saving measures inbuildings through an intelligent decision support model. Building and Environment, 44(2), 290–298.
[18] Hestnes A.G., Kofoed N.U. (2002), Effective retrofitting scenarios for energy efficiency and comfort: results of the design and evaluation activities within the OFFICE project, , Building and Environment, 37, 6, June 2002, 569–574.
[19] Fokaides P. and Papadopoulos A.M. (2014), Cost-optimal insulation thickness in dry and mesothermal climates: Existing models and their improvement, Energy and Buildings, 68, 203-212
[20] Santamouris M., Daskalaki E. (2002), Passive retrofitting of office buildings to improve their energy performance and indoor environment: the OFFICE project, Building and Environment, 37, 6, 575–578.
[21] Manioglu G., Yılmaz Z. (2008), Energy efficient design strategies in the hot dry area of Turkey, Building and Environment, 43, 7, 1301–1309.
Published
2014-05-29
How to Cite
LEONIDAKI, Konstantina et al.
Thermal performance of office building envelopes: the role of window-to-wall ratio and thermal mass in Mediterranean and Oceanic climates.
Journal of Power Technologies, [S.l.], v. 94, n. 2, p. 128--134, may 2014.
ISSN 2083-4195.
Available at: <https://papers.itc.pw.edu.pl/index.php/JPT/article/view/550>. Date accessed: 16 apr. 2024.
Issue
Section
Solar Power Technologies
Keywords
office buildings, window to wall ratio, thermal mass, energy simulation
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