Violeta Motuzienė

Energy Balance of a Low Energy House

Abstract Currently, such topics as improvement of energy efficiency of buildings and energy systems, development of sustainable building concepts, and promotion of renewable energy sources are in the focus of attention. The energy efficiency targets of the European Union are based on information regarding energy consumed by buildings. The amount of energy consumed by buildings depends on the main influencing factors (namely, climate parameters, building envelope, energy systems, building operation and maintenance, activities and behaviour of occupants), which have to be considered in order to identify energy efficiency potentials and opportunities. The article aims to investigate the total amount of energy consumed by a low energy house, built in Lithuania, using a combination of energy consumption data received from a simulation and measured energy consumption data. The energy performance analysis in the low energy house revealed some factors that have the main influence on the total figures of energy co...

Impact of Internal Heat Gains on Building’s Energy Performance

Internal heat gains from occupants, equipment and lighting contribute a significant proportion of the heat gains in an office space. Usage of ICT in offices is growing; on the other hand, their efficiency is also improving all the time. Increasing energy efficiency in buildings have led to the situation, when new, well insulated office buildings, with high internal gains within the working hours may cover low heating energy demand. Such buildings, even in heating dominated countries, such as Lithuania, often also suffer from overheating during the winter heating season. The paper presents the analysis of energy demand of the office building for various plug loads (ICT equipment) internal gains scenarios and demonstrates its influence on buildings energy performance. Simulation results enable to conclude, that when assessing sustainability and energy bills of the building, plug loads play a very important role; Meanwhile, assessing just energy performance influence is very small. Energy performance certification results show, that plug loads may influence energy performance label just for buildings corresponding A+ and A++ labels ). DOI: https://doi.org/10.3846/enviro.2017.265