Dionysia Kolokotsa

Retrofitting an office building towards a net zero energy building

Energy consumption in buildings for heating, cooling and lighting is required to be reduced in all European countries in order for the goals set by the latest European Directives for reducing energy consumption by 20% and increasing the introduction of renewable energy sources by 20% to be achieved. The present paper focuses, initially, on the reduction of energy consumption of an office building in the campus of the Technical University of Crete as well as on the cover of minimized energy demands with renewable energy sources. The approach is simulation based. Firstly, the current heating and cooling demands of the building are estimated. Subsequently, some basic energy conservation techniques are applied and a detailed analysis is performed about the new energy requirements. Finally, renewable energy sources are implemented in order to provide energy to the building or directly into the grid, thus having a net zero energy building.

Design, construction and monitoring of a near-zero energy laboratory building in Cyprus

The paper presents the architectural, engineering and energy design of a laboratory building located in Cyprus. The building is designed to meet near-zero energy consumption criteria using advanced energy conservation measures, smart energy management and solar thermal and photovoltaic systems to cover the remaining energy load. The energy conservation techniques used result in reduced energy consumption of the building by almost 70% compared with a conventional building, while almost 27% of the remaining heating-, cooling- and lighting load is covered by photovoltaics. A concentrating solar thermal system for cooling and heating is being installed to cover the remainder of the load.

Office Buildings/Commercial Buildings: Trends and Perspectives

Zero and Positive Energy Buildings are buildings that use their own locally-installed (renewable) energy-generating sources to produce, over a certain period of time (e.g., on an annual basis), more power than they consume. The aim of this chapter is to present the trends and perspectives for office buildings to become zero energy in the coming years. Innovative technologies and energy management practices are presented. The role of case studies and shining examples for the Mediterranean region are revealed.

Review and State of the Art on Methodologies of Buildings’ Energy-Efficiency Classification

The aim of this chapter is the analysis and the evaluation of the relevant research in the field of building energy classification. The literature review comprises studies of the last 40 years (post 1970). The review begins with the studies of building energy benchmarking methods and their categories according to the energy performance indicator they use, the statistical analysis and the distribution they are based on, the parameters that have to be taken into account and their final purpose. The review continues with the researches dealing with energy and environmental rating and labeling methods, focusing on the methods proposed by the CEN Standards. In the last part of the literature review, some significant researches that investigate the integrated classification methods including the building energy database, the benchmarking method, the building energy performance evaluation, and the energy boundaries (classes) definition are presented and analyzed. By summarizing the research work performed so far in the buildings’ classification sector, the authors reveal the crucial points and analyze the statement of the problem of this book research.

Office Building Simulation Models and Simplified Audits

This chapter presents a simulation model of an office building, that it is created in order to evaluate the energy performance and the indoor thermal comfort at hourly and yearly base of any case study office building. With the aim to collect information about the characteristics of the Greek office building sector and to test the adopted simulation model, simple audits were conducted by the authors. The outcomes of these audits are presented in the last part of the chapter.

Protocol of Alternative Measures for Buildings’ Energy Efficiency Improvement

This chapter introduces alternative measures for buildings’ efficiency improvement that combine indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and energy savings. The chapter includes the mathematical principles, the proposed methods, and the specific scenarios.

Detailed Audit and Detailed Case-Study Building Model: Virtual Building Dataset (VBD) for Benchmarking and Classification of Office Buildings

The fourth chapter consists of two parts. The first part describes a detailed energy audit and a detailed simulation model, based on a Building Energy Management System (BEMS) installed in an office building and on measured hourly values of energy and indoor environment parameters. The aim of the second part of this chapter is to present the development of a Virtual Building Dataset (VBD) of office buildings as an innovative benchmarking and classification tool. The proposed methodology overcomes the difficulties and time required for collecting the necessary massive building constructional and energy bills data, which is a cumbersome and time-consuming work, by creating them virtually using efficient stochastic simulation (uniform stochastic distribution), by taking into account all parameters that may affect the energy performance and indoor thermal comfort of office buildings. The VBD tool provides flexibility and expandability on building datasets’ characteristics, sample size and climatic conditions according to the relevant research scope. The large number of the developed data can also be used for sensitivity analysis, neural network training, as well as for any process that demands a significant number of building data.

Environmental Rating of Buildings

The chapter analyzes and presents an environmental rating method for buildings that is based on Leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) methodology, which is the official environmental rating method of buildings first developed and applied in USA. The methodology is correlated to the deliverables concerning the energy classification of buildings and their environmental rating factors. It is shown the procedure to adapt the LEED methodology in each specific building case study.

Energy Efficiency in the Built Environment

In this chapter, the authors present the measures, equipments, appliances, and intelligent management—monitoring systems for buildings’ energy and environmental improvement. The analysis includes the latest methods of passive retrofits, such as passive solar heating, passive cooling, cool roofs, cool materials, and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methods in buildings.