Refurbishment of an office building in the Netherlands using the Earth, Wind and Fire system

Abstract

The built environment is the largest energy consumer in the European Union in which the non-domestic sector accounts for 13% of the total energy consumption and the office buildings account for 50% of the energy consumption. The office buildings in the Netherlands exhibit poor energy performance and thermal comfort. There is an urgent need to rectify this problem by renovation or refurbishment by utilizing renewable sources of energy. Therefore, this research focuses on improving the energy consumption of an office building in the Netherlands by implementing the Earth, Wind and Fire system which utilizes the environmental energy of earth mass, wind and sun to generate and supply energy throughout the building by eliminating the use of HVAC systems. The research adopted basic and dynamic simulation models to evaluate the energy performance of the building with EWF system and ATG method to evaluate the Thermal comfort. The research concluded that the EWF system is an efficient way to reduce the energy performance of the Provinciehuis Utrecht building and by refurbishing the façade and adding PV panels, the energy consumption of the building can reduce further. The research was validated by using the BENG regulations and a proposal was designed to make the Provinciehuis Paris Proof.