Experimental monitoring and post-occupancy evaluation of a non-domestic solar building in the central region of Argentina

FILIPPÍN CELINA; FLORES LARSEN SILVANA; MAREK L

ENERGY AND BUILDINGS

ELSEVIER SCIENCE SA

Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2015 vol. 92 p. 267 - 281

0378-7788

Previous experience in designing and monitoring bioclimatic buildings in central Argentina suggests that their thermal behaviour is a matter of concern and that further research is needed. Thus, the objectives of this work are: to describe the design and the post-occupancy evaluation of a new non-domestic solar building in a continental semiarid region of central Argentina (37º38? latitude S, 63º34? longitude, 175 m above sea level), to analyze the building?s higrothermal and energy  performance, and to estimate the PMV and PPD. The design guidelines were: to minimize the consumption of conventional energy in thermal-lighting conditioning, to use traditional technology, to maximize the thermal comfort, and to reach an extra-cost lower than 10%. The post-occupancy monitoring of the building was performed along one complete year (August 9th 2011 to August 18th 2012). Data-loggers were installed in each functional area to sense the indoor temperature and relative humidity at time steps of 10 minutes. A meteorological station was installed near the building.  The experimental results showed that during winter the average temperature in the areas of permanent use was 20.3ºC (average outdoor temperature: 10.1ºC) and the heating energy consumption was around 73.5 kWh/m2. During summer the average indoor temperature in the building was 26.9ºC, 1.7ºC below the outdoor temperature average (28.6ºC); cooling systems were turned on when the indoor temperature reached 28ºC, at approximately 11:30 AM, when the outdoor air temperature exceeded 30ºC. Mechanical cooling consumed around 59% of the daily electricity consumption.  The PDD results obtained for winter and summer representative days meet the requirements of ISO Norm 7730.  Heating and cooling energy saving was around 63% and 76.5% respectively. The monitoring showed that the thermal behaviour and energy performance met the expectations of both designers and users, and it is considered satisfactory and promising for low-energy consumption buildings.