Passive cooling strategies in Plus-Energy houses

Back to 2015 Symposium Overview

Session 16 Paper 2, University College London, 16-17 April 2015

Cooling homes is important in order to maintain acceptable internal comfort, especially in a warming world. This is set alongside the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive of the European Commission which has set a zero energy goal for all new buildings by the end of 2020. One of the relatively recent housing concepts is the plus-energy house which produces more energy than it consumes. Plus-energy houses are generally ventilated by MVHR (mechanical ventilation and heat recovery) systems. However, concerns have been expressed over the performance of such systems in terms of indoor air quality, thermal comfort and total carbon emissions.

Much research has been completed, and case study buildings constructed, which demonstrate the advantages and success of natural ventilation as an alternative to MVHR. This presentation uses one of the winning entries to the Solar Decathlon (Europe) competition and investigates refinements to the performance of two passive cooling strategies used in the building.