Impact of passive sol design pameters on an office building energy use in Serbia

Abstract

It is widely accepted among chitects, civil, mechanical and electrical engineers today that due attention has to be paid during building design process to energy saving, daylight use, advancing heating and cooling by exploiting sol energy, improving natural ventilation and minimizing environmental impact. Although reduction in building energy use can be achieved by using relatively simple individual measures, high performance requires coherent use of distinct measures that jointly optimize complete building performance. We study here relationships of passive sol design pameters ? glazing type, windows- To-wall ratio of façades, presence of shading on the southern façade, and U-value of opaque envelope components ? with total energy demand in an office building in prevalent climatic conditions in Serbia, through EnergyPlus simulations of all combinations of selected pameter values for a case study of an office building. Current building regulations in Serbia prescribe the use of highly efficient glazing in building design, together with low U-value of opaque envelope components and high building airtightness. As a consequence, cooling energy needs become more important than heating energy needs, contry to customy design practice in Serbia. Simulation results suggest that the optimal windows- To-wall ratio for the southern façade stems towd the minimum feasible value, while the optimal windows- To-wall ratio for the northern façade has a nontrivial value, due to the positive impact of lger northern windows- To-wall ratios on the cooling demand. Results further show that the shading of southern windows is not necessy for small windows- To-wall ratios of the southern façade. However, with shading present, the chitect obtains greater freedom in selecting lger southern windows- To-wall ratio, while maintaining proximity to optimal solution.