Housing Refurbishment using the Earth, Wind & Fire System
Towards a nearly energy-neutral housing in the Netherlands
Y. Patidar (TU Delft - Architecture and the Built Environment)
Regina Bokel (Building Physics)
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Abstract
In the Netherlands, the residential buildings consume the highest percentage of primary energy among the various building sectors. With around 80% of the Dutch housing built before 1995 a huge portion of the energy share is tapped in the old housing stock. While new housing constructions had to be nearly energy neutral as of 2020, a large portion of the existing housing stock has a higher relative energy consumption. The old housing stock thus needs urgent energy-retrofitting that is instrumental in reaching the goals targeted by the Dutch government by 2050. The Earth, Wind & Fire (EWF) system developed by Dr. Ben Bronsema (2013) during his PhD research can play an effective role in this aspect. Therefore, the research focussed on investigating the applicability of the Earth, Wind & Fire system for the Housing buildings in terms of energy-efficiency and thermal comfort potential. A case study building is selected to carry out the said investigation. Several design strategies were incorporated for the case study building to design the EWF system with highest technical performance. The study also incorporated dynamic simulations to evaluate the energy performance of the building after installing the EWF system. The study concluded that the integration of the Earth, Wind & Fire system has a great potential to reduce the energy consumption of the apartment buildings and improve the indoor comfort of the building and thus is a highly effective energy-retrofitting system for the housing buildings. The efficiency of the EWF system in improving the performance of the apartment buildings is thus highlighted. The effectives of the EWF system in reducing the energy consumption is dependent on the existing façade of the apartments and thus it is essential to refurbish the poor-performing façade to maximize the benefit. Thus, the study also concluded that apart from the installation of the EWF system several more improvements are needed in the existing buildings to achieve the goal of a nearly energy-neutral design.