Natural summer ventilation strategies for energy-saving in high-rise buildings

Abstract

This paper investigates the potential use of natural ventilation strategies to reduce the energy demand for cooling and mechanical ventilation for high-rise buildings in summer. A 21-storey office building was selected to represent a mechanically ventilated high-rise design in temperate climates. Six natural ventilation scenarios were developed for the base design and the CFD package in DesignBuilder was used to predict their flow pattern under two summer conditions. Afterwards, the Operative temperature and the total fresh air changes per hour were calculated with EnergyPlus and were compared accordingly with European comfort standards. The percentage of discomfort hours indicates when a natural ventilation system would need active cooling or mechanical ventilation. Natural ventilation strategies can provide comfort conditions for up to 90% of the occupancy time in summer and therefore can save a significant amount of energy that is generally needed for the operation of traditional mechanical ventilation and air-conditioning systems.