Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Mon, 10/25/2021 - 17:58
IEA Energy in Buildings and Communities (EBC) research projects are examining building energy codes, exploring data utilization for improving energy efficiency, and investigating air cleaning technologies.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Fri, 10/22/2021 - 13:04
In this webinar, we addressed the opportunities offered by smart ventilation strategies, which include a wide range of systems depending on the type of sensing parameters (CO2, humidity, occupancy, etc.), the type of sensing combinations, the type of installation (centralized/decentralized), the types of control algorithms, etc. We also quantified their potential from and energy and IAQ point of view based on existing and newly developed assessment framework in the annex.
The current development in building energy efficiency towards nZEB buildings represents a number of new challenges to design and construction. One of these major challenges is the increased need for cooling in these highly insulated and airtight buildings, which is not only present in the summer period but also in the shoulder seasons and in offices even in midwinter. Resilient ventilative cooling can be an energy efficient solution to address this cooling challenge in buildings.
Mandatory or voluntary building airtightness testing has come gradually into force in many European countries mostly because of the increasing weight of building leakage energy impact on the overall energy performance of low-energy buildings. Therefore, airtightness levels of new buildings have significantly improved in the last decade, but a lot of questions remain regarding the durability of airtightness products.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Thu, 12/01/2022 - 16:12
Our bodies need good rest and sleep as part of regular recuperation to enable us to perform our normal activities in life. Sleep is an integral part of human life and the importance and significance of good bedroom IAQ, indoor air pollution, ventilation as well as bedroom thermal environment during sleep cannot be emphasized more. Yet, there is a paucity of information in the scientific literature in this regard, especially pertaining to IAQ in sleeping environments and sleep quality. Are our bedrooms adequately ventilated at all times to maintain good IAQ?
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Wed, 11/02/2022 - 08:52
Personal Environmental Control System (PECS) with the functions of heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting and acoustic has advantages of controlling the localized environment at occupant’s workstation by their preference instead of conditioning an entire room. This improves personal comfort, health and energy efficiency of the entire heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system substantially. Personalized ventilation will also protect against cross contaminations, which are critical in open plan offices and workplaces with close distance.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Mon, 10/17/2022 - 14:35
Ventilation represents a very high part of the building’s energy load. Increased envelope protection combined with the significant increase of the ambient temperature, turn ventilation into one of the major energy consuming uses requiring the development and use of innovative and efficient new technologies to minimise the ventilation energy load. In parallel, the increase of the ambient temperature induced by global and local overheating increases the cooling load of buildings and decreases the cooling potential of ventilation
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Tue, 10/11/2022 - 18:44
Worldwide, there is an increasing number of publications related to air cleaning and there is an increasing sale of gas phase air cleaning products. This puts a demand for verifying the influence of using air cleaning on indoor air quality, comfort, well-being and health. It is thus important to learn whether air cleaning can supplement ventilation with respect to improving air quality i.e. whether it can partly substitute the ventilation rates required by standards. There is also a need to evaluate the energy impact of using air cleaning as supplement to ventilation.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Thu, 09/15/2022 - 11:40
The transition to climate neutrality has a large impact on the job of building and HVAC designers, manufacturers, installers, investors, etc. Renovating our building stock to make it more energy efficient is a huge task. Both research and practice prove that users have an important impact on this performance. Human-building interactions, like window opening, thermostat and solar shading usage, affect the performance of the building and HVAC systems.
Submitted by Maria.Kapsalaki on Wed, 07/13/2022 - 11:26
Well-insulated and air-tight buildings are known to be vulnerable to overheating. An increase in the severity and duration of heatwaves is expected, resulting in more severe overheating risks, affecting in turn the health and mortality of building users. To achieve more future-proof buildings, it is crucial to design buildings that are “resilient” to overheating in future climate conditions.
