Incorporating future weather predictions into building assessments is essential for enhancing res... more Incorporating future weather predictions into building assessments is essential for enhancing resilience, energy efficiency, cost savings, comfort, and sustainable infrastructure development in response to climate change. This study investigates the interplay between climate change and building performance, primarily focusing on energy usage, cost implications, and occupant comfort. It examines how future weather conditions impact school buildings in different climates, analyzing energy, cost, and comfort aspects. The research underscores the significance of tailored climate adaptation strategies for various regions and emphasizes considering future performance, even for highly energy-efficient buildings. Employing a comprehensive simulation-based approach, the study implements and validates future weather data in a Turkish school building, incorporating envelope improvements and photovoltaic applications to boost energy efficiency. A distinctive feature is the rigorous validation of future weather predictions against current measured data, facilitating a regional-level assessment of climate change effects on building energy consumption. The study's novelty lies in its detailed evaluation of climate change's multifaceted impacts on buildings, innovative future climate data validation, and contribution to a more localized and climate-specific approach to addressing building energy-cost-comfort performance. Findings reveal that in hot climates, there is a potential for nearly doubling primary energy consumption, global costs, and CO2 emissions in the future for both cost-optimal and nearly zero energy scenarios. Consequently, the savings would decrease from 53-63 % to 13–30 %. In contrast, in cold climates, the impact on these parameters differs slightly, with reduced primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions but higher global costs. Notably, a building retrofitted to a high energy efficiency level may experience a substantial increase in future energy consumption and global costs, approaching the levels of currently inefficient buildings.
With the increment in time spent indoors, the contingence between building occupants and indoor a... more With the increment in time spent indoors, the contingence between building occupants and indoor air pollution has been lengthened. Accordingly, indoor air quality became a significant factor since the poor conditions can influence the occupants’ health and efficiency. Indoor air quality is mainly concerned with physical and thermophysical factors in conditioned environments and is related to occupants’ satisfaction levels on a variety of variables such as fresh air adequacy, air temperature, odor, humidity, and air velocity. This paper aims to investigate natural ventilation occupant-control methods to improve indoor air quality and increase building energy efficiency considering clean air intake levels and indoor air temperature levels. For this, variables related to climatic conditions, ventilation systems, and occupant’s control on window opening were investigated to provide healthy and liveable conditions. To comply with these goals, in an open-plan office building, the levels o...
A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are... more A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are worth full throughout the generations in and these heritages have significant roles regarding sustainability. The climate has an important impact on the related architecture. As a result, constructors tried to use possible strategies regarding natural climatic for coping with harsh conditions. To exemplify, in a hot and arid climate of Iran, the main difficulties are encountering with the deficiency of water and humidity, severe climate-enforced architects to build their houses with extraordinary measures to meet. The most important strategies include proper layout orientation, the distance between buildings, building’ direction and form, climatic elements such as wind-catcher, central courtyard, etc. In the ancient architecture of Iran and the most of the Middle East countries, wind-catchers play a crucial role to provide thermal comfort for occupants, especially in hot climates. The paper aims to focus on the traditional housing in hot and arid climate of Iran. It is a country with different climatic zones, and, traditional builders have presented several logical climatic solutions to improve human comfort and energy efficiency of the buildings. Kashan, which is located in the province of Isfahan, is selected to be a representative city. To evaluating different strategies, the case study building’ energy performance was calculated by the aid of dynamic simulation tools, Design Builder, and Energy Plus. Various scenarios are applied on the wind-catchers, windows and different thickness of the materials to analyze the energy performance of building in various circumstance.
The European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD Recast, Directive 2010/31/EU)... more The European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD Recast, Directive 2010/31/EU), introduced the “cost optimality” concept in order to take economic effects into account while analyzing the energy performances of the buildings. The cost optimal methodology framework involves several stages starting with the establishment of the reference buildings representing the building stock. This stage is important since all of the following analyzes are applied on these reference buildings with the aim of achieving generalized solutions. A research project was conducted in order to define the procedure of reference building establishment and adapting the cost optimal methodology in Turkey. This paper displays the sample reference building definition procedure followed in this project. Istanbul is selected as a pilot city for this study since this city contains various building types and user profiles. Twenty six reference buildings were defined in three categories: single fami...
Large portion of the building stock in EU was built before prosper of energy efficiency issue in ... more Large portion of the building stock in EU was built before prosper of energy efficiency issue in building construction, hence, consume a huge amount of energy that can be preserved. On the other hands, demolition of an existing building and construction of a new energy efficient building requires huge budget and is irrational. Besides, building envelope is the most effective predictor due to being in direct interaction with the external environment conditions. Schools alone are responsible for 15% of the total energy consumption in contrary to other commercial buildings, for decreasing energy consumption of this type of buildings, energy demand of buildings must be minimized and energy efficiency should be increased. Overall, it seems renovation of existing buildings with higher energy efficiency and minimum cost can be a logical step for current barriers. In order to reach this paper's goals, one of the existed typical schools building in Turkey, which is located in Istanbul, i...
In Turkey, buildings sector was responsible for consumption of 35% of whole energy consumption in... more In Turkey, buildings sector was responsible for consumption of 35% of whole energy consumption in 2012. According to EIA, Turkey's residential sector consumed natural gas about 3 times of commercial sector in 2011. Also, this sector has approximately 30% energy saving potential that lead to approximately 2250 million dollars saving. Base on these facts, it is clear that energy efficient retrofit (EER) of existing residential buildings (ERB) in Turkey is inevitable. The main barrier of EER is fewer amounts of financial resources as building owners are reluctant to involve in their own actions. Scientists and decision makers are trying to develop high applicable methods with low initial cost that can satisfy owners to involve in the actions as a self-financier. This paper is aimed to make EER measures on buildings' envelope more applicable in Turkey through reduction of investment cost in order to encourage owners to have self-financier role in the actions. The case buildings ...
Positive Energy Districts (PED) are areas within cities that generate more renewable energy than ... more Positive Energy Districts (PED) are areas within cities that generate more renewable energy than they consume, contributing to cities’ energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. Since PED is a novel concept, the implementation is very challenging. Within the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action, which offers an open space for collaboration among scientists across Europe (and beyond), this paper asks what the needs for supporting the implementation of PEDs are. To answer this, it draws on Delphi process (expert reviews) as the main method alongside the literature review and also uses surveys as supplementary methods to identify the main challenges for developing PEDs. Initial findings reveal seven interacting topics that later were ranked as highest to the lowest as the following: governance, incentive, social, process, market, technology and context. These are interrelated and interdependent, implying that none can be considered in isolation of th...
Abstract The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the c... more Abstract The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the construction sector. Hence, they are consuming an enormous energy amount that can be preserved considerably by applying some not even advanced retrofit measures. Schools' low budget is a problem that managers are encountered. Thus the high retrofit cost can prevent taking proper actions. However, considering the measures leading to higher energy efficiency with appropriate cost and payback period, together with taking the lifespan of buildings and the economic benefits during this extended period, would make the actions attractive. This research aims at defining a multi-parameter approach to distinguish energy efficient measures with proper cost, payback period and CO2 emission for primary school buildings’ retrofit. It is following the concept of cost-optimal building retrofit introduced by the EPBD-recast. To assess the proposed approach, two typical school buildings were considered as case studies, the model was created and validated by real consumptions, and then some measures were applied to the envelope, mechanical and lighting system. After driven cost-optimal measures, the comfort analyses were conducted and some of the measures were excluded due to worsening the comfort conditions. The results indicate that, in the suitable cost-optimal scenarios, the potential of primary energy savings and CO2 emission reductions are approximately 60%, and savings for global cost would amount to more than 42%, while the payback periods are less than seven years.
The energy conversations methods and techniques take a significant role in the energy performance... more The energy conversations methods and techniques take a significant role in the energy performance of the buildings. Façade and shading systems are in continuous development, and recent studies are showing the importance of implementation of such systems to reduce energy consumption and enhance the effectiveness of the building performance. School buildings are mostly being used during daytime, hence, require active use of sunlight. A measure that is taken on a school building envelope can prevent overheating and overcooling and reduce the heating and cooling energy consumption but at the same time can increase the lighting energy consumption vice versa. Thus, it is necessary to optimise the energy required for climatisation of a building with lighting energy demand. The main aim of the paper is to provide analysis for façade and shading systems applied to a school building and study the effectiveness of it on energy consumption and conservation. The case study for this paper is a ty...
Recast version of Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD-Recast) obligate member states t... more Recast version of Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD-Recast) obligate member states to keep the cost analysis in parallel with the energy analysis during the renovation actions for the existing building by taking the cost-optimal level of minimum energy performance requirement to the account. Although this cost-optimal level is indicating the minimum cost level for a period, it can provide buildings’ owners with an enormous initial cost. One of the most challenging barriers to energy efficient and cost-optimal renovation of existing buildings is the reluctance of owners to involve in their project as an investor due to the high cost of application. Particularly in developing countries, such reluctance is more tangible as the governments are not capable of providing enough financial incentives for owners due to a large number of buildings that should be renovated and small available budget. A proper solution for the problem is to divide necessary actions for each building...
Energy efficiency of existing buildings is a concept to manage and restrain the growth in energy ... more Energy efficiency of existing buildings is a concept to manage and restrain the growth in energy consumption and one of the crucial issues due to the magnitude of the sector. Educational buildings are in charge of about 15% of the total energy consumption of the non-residential building sector. However, not only operational but also embodied energy of a building should be reduced to get the overall benefits of energy efficiency, where, using energy efficient architectural measures and low emitting materials during every retrofit action can be a logical step. The majority of buildings in Turkey and EU was built earlier than the development of the energy efficiency in the construction sector, hence, without energy retrofit, consume an enormous amount of energy that can be averted significantly by the implementation of some even not advanced retrofit measures. Furthermore, demolishing of a building to construct a new one is not a rational approach concerning cost, time and environmenta...
Energy efficiency has become a crucial part of human life, which has an adverse impact on the soc... more Energy efficiency has become a crucial part of human life, which has an adverse impact on the social and economic development of any country. In Turkey, it is a critical issue especially in the construction sector due to increase in the dependency on the fuel demands. The energy consumption, which is used during the life cycle of a building, is a huge amount affected by the energy demand for material and building construction, HVAC and lighting systems, maintenance, equipment, and demolition. In general, the Life Cycle Energy (LCE) needs of the building can be summarised as the operational and embodied energy together with the energy use for demolition and recycling processes.Besides, schools alone are responsible for about 15% of the total energy consumption of the commercial building sector. To reduce the energy use and CO2 emission, the operational and embodied energy of the buildings must be minimised. Overall, it seems that choosing proper architectural measures for the envelop...
Abstract There has been an increasing interest in studying energy efficiency in buildings in the ... more Abstract There has been an increasing interest in studying energy efficiency in buildings in the recent years, as they account for a significant portion of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. While most of the studies focus on the buildings' operational phase, a substantial part of buildings' energy consumption is disguised as embodied energy. It is impossible to have a zero energy building, as it is necessary to use materials to build the building, and those materials need to produce and transport energy. Life Cycle Analysis is the utmost efficient method to assess how a building affects the environment. Notably, the impact of buildings on the environment across their lifespans are determined by some factors, which comprise materials, design, construction, use and demolition. The study aims to present the implementation of a life cycle approach and occupant thermal comfort during the school building's energy efficiency design. The study's principal objective focuses on the energy use and environmental impact linked to various alternatives of building envelopes in different climates. Within this context, a reference building located in three different climatic regions of Turkey is investigated. Two ranges of efficiency comprise the focal points of the study. Cost-optimal and nearly zero energy levels are defined for each city. In the hot climate, the cost-optimal scenario cannot improve the comfort conditions, whereas the nZEB scenario improves slightly in such a context. In temperate and cold climates, both strategies can improve comfort conditions. The share of embodied energy and carbon in the nZEB level can reach higher than 80 percent, whereas it is lower than 15 percent in the cost-optimal level.
The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the constructi... more The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the construction sector. Hence, they are consuming an enormous energy amount that can be preserved considerably by applying some not even advanced retrofit measures. Schools' low budget is a problem that managers are encountered. Thus the high retrofit cost can prevent taking proper actions. However, considering the measures leading to higher energy efficiency with appropriate cost and payback period, together with taking the lifespan of buildings and the economic benefits during this extended period, would make the actions attractive. This research aims at defining a multi-parameter approach to distinguish energy efficient measures with proper cost, payback period and CO2 emission for primary school buildings’ retrofit. It is following the concept of cost-optimal building retrofit introduced by the EPBD-recast. To assess the proposed approach, two typical school buildings were considered as case studies, the model was created and validated by real consumptions, and then some measures were applied to the envelope, mechanical and lighting system. After driven cost-optimal measures, the comfort analyses were conducted and some of the measures were excluded due to worsening the comfort conditions. The results indicate that, in the suitable cost-optimal scenarios, the potential of primary energy savings and CO2 emission reductions are approximately 60%, and savings for global cost would amount to more than 42%, while the payback periods are less than seven years.
Various investigations have confirmed that pupils and teachers’ learning/teaching performance and... more Various investigations have confirmed that pupils and teachers’ learning/teaching performance and health depend heavily on the quality and amount of daylight and indoor thermal conditions. The primary aim of using natural light in schools is to reduce energy consumption and costs, but it should also improve students’ performance. An appropriate configuration of windows improves visual and thermal comfort by reducing glare, distributing light and controlling solar energy gain.
The study focuses on the impact of different transparency ratios (WWR) and window combinations in two critical orientations (west and east) on occupants’ comfort and the energy demands of a classroom. A building was selected for a case study investigation at the design stage. One east-facing and one west-facing classroom were studied. The two classrooms were simulated with the aid of the lighting and energy simulation programs DIALux Evo 6.0, DesignBuilder 5.5 and EnergyPlus 8.9. The results indicated that a glazing ratio of 50% would reduce the requirement for artificial lighting by at least 15% as well as providing more comfortable conditions.
A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are... more A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are worth full throughout the generations in and these heritages have significant roles regarding sustainability. The climate has an important impact on the related architecture. As a result, constructors tried to use possible strategies regarding natural climatic for coping with harsh conditions. To exemplify, in a hot and arid climate of Iran, the main difficulties are encountering with the deficiency of water and humidity, severe climate-enforced architects to build their houses with extraordinary measures to meet. The most important strategies include proper layout orientation, the distance between buildings, building’ direction and form, climatic elements such as wind-catcher, central courtyard, etc. In the ancient architecture of Iran and the most of the Middle East countries, wind-catchers play a crucial role to provide thermal comfort for occupants, especially in hot climates. The paper aims to focus on the traditional housing in hot and arid climate of Iran. It is a country with different climatic zones, and, traditional builders have presented several logical climatic solutions to improve human comfort and energy efficiency of the buildings. Kashan, which is located in the province of Isfahan, is selected to be a representative city. To evaluating different strategies, the case study building’ energy performance was calculated by the aid of dynamic simulation tools, Design Builder, and Energy Plus. Various scenarios are applied on the wind-catchers, windows and different thickness of the materials to analyze the energy performance of building in various circumstance.
Incorporating future weather predictions into building assessments is essential for enhancing res... more Incorporating future weather predictions into building assessments is essential for enhancing resilience, energy efficiency, cost savings, comfort, and sustainable infrastructure development in response to climate change. This study investigates the interplay between climate change and building performance, primarily focusing on energy usage, cost implications, and occupant comfort. It examines how future weather conditions impact school buildings in different climates, analyzing energy, cost, and comfort aspects. The research underscores the significance of tailored climate adaptation strategies for various regions and emphasizes considering future performance, even for highly energy-efficient buildings. Employing a comprehensive simulation-based approach, the study implements and validates future weather data in a Turkish school building, incorporating envelope improvements and photovoltaic applications to boost energy efficiency. A distinctive feature is the rigorous validation of future weather predictions against current measured data, facilitating a regional-level assessment of climate change effects on building energy consumption. The study's novelty lies in its detailed evaluation of climate change's multifaceted impacts on buildings, innovative future climate data validation, and contribution to a more localized and climate-specific approach to addressing building energy-cost-comfort performance. Findings reveal that in hot climates, there is a potential for nearly doubling primary energy consumption, global costs, and CO2 emissions in the future for both cost-optimal and nearly zero energy scenarios. Consequently, the savings would decrease from 53-63 % to 13–30 %. In contrast, in cold climates, the impact on these parameters differs slightly, with reduced primary energy consumption and CO2 emissions but higher global costs. Notably, a building retrofitted to a high energy efficiency level may experience a substantial increase in future energy consumption and global costs, approaching the levels of currently inefficient buildings.
With the increment in time spent indoors, the contingence between building occupants and indoor a... more With the increment in time spent indoors, the contingence between building occupants and indoor air pollution has been lengthened. Accordingly, indoor air quality became a significant factor since the poor conditions can influence the occupants’ health and efficiency. Indoor air quality is mainly concerned with physical and thermophysical factors in conditioned environments and is related to occupants’ satisfaction levels on a variety of variables such as fresh air adequacy, air temperature, odor, humidity, and air velocity. This paper aims to investigate natural ventilation occupant-control methods to improve indoor air quality and increase building energy efficiency considering clean air intake levels and indoor air temperature levels. For this, variables related to climatic conditions, ventilation systems, and occupant’s control on window opening were investigated to provide healthy and liveable conditions. To comply with these goals, in an open-plan office building, the levels o...
A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are... more A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are worth full throughout the generations in and these heritages have significant roles regarding sustainability. The climate has an important impact on the related architecture. As a result, constructors tried to use possible strategies regarding natural climatic for coping with harsh conditions. To exemplify, in a hot and arid climate of Iran, the main difficulties are encountering with the deficiency of water and humidity, severe climate-enforced architects to build their houses with extraordinary measures to meet. The most important strategies include proper layout orientation, the distance between buildings, building’ direction and form, climatic elements such as wind-catcher, central courtyard, etc. In the ancient architecture of Iran and the most of the Middle East countries, wind-catchers play a crucial role to provide thermal comfort for occupants, especially in hot climates. The paper aims to focus on the traditional housing in hot and arid climate of Iran. It is a country with different climatic zones, and, traditional builders have presented several logical climatic solutions to improve human comfort and energy efficiency of the buildings. Kashan, which is located in the province of Isfahan, is selected to be a representative city. To evaluating different strategies, the case study building’ energy performance was calculated by the aid of dynamic simulation tools, Design Builder, and Energy Plus. Various scenarios are applied on the wind-catchers, windows and different thickness of the materials to analyze the energy performance of building in various circumstance.
The European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD Recast, Directive 2010/31/EU)... more The European Directive on the Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD Recast, Directive 2010/31/EU), introduced the “cost optimality” concept in order to take economic effects into account while analyzing the energy performances of the buildings. The cost optimal methodology framework involves several stages starting with the establishment of the reference buildings representing the building stock. This stage is important since all of the following analyzes are applied on these reference buildings with the aim of achieving generalized solutions. A research project was conducted in order to define the procedure of reference building establishment and adapting the cost optimal methodology in Turkey. This paper displays the sample reference building definition procedure followed in this project. Istanbul is selected as a pilot city for this study since this city contains various building types and user profiles. Twenty six reference buildings were defined in three categories: single fami...
Large portion of the building stock in EU was built before prosper of energy efficiency issue in ... more Large portion of the building stock in EU was built before prosper of energy efficiency issue in building construction, hence, consume a huge amount of energy that can be preserved. On the other hands, demolition of an existing building and construction of a new energy efficient building requires huge budget and is irrational. Besides, building envelope is the most effective predictor due to being in direct interaction with the external environment conditions. Schools alone are responsible for 15% of the total energy consumption in contrary to other commercial buildings, for decreasing energy consumption of this type of buildings, energy demand of buildings must be minimized and energy efficiency should be increased. Overall, it seems renovation of existing buildings with higher energy efficiency and minimum cost can be a logical step for current barriers. In order to reach this paper's goals, one of the existed typical schools building in Turkey, which is located in Istanbul, i...
In Turkey, buildings sector was responsible for consumption of 35% of whole energy consumption in... more In Turkey, buildings sector was responsible for consumption of 35% of whole energy consumption in 2012. According to EIA, Turkey's residential sector consumed natural gas about 3 times of commercial sector in 2011. Also, this sector has approximately 30% energy saving potential that lead to approximately 2250 million dollars saving. Base on these facts, it is clear that energy efficient retrofit (EER) of existing residential buildings (ERB) in Turkey is inevitable. The main barrier of EER is fewer amounts of financial resources as building owners are reluctant to involve in their own actions. Scientists and decision makers are trying to develop high applicable methods with low initial cost that can satisfy owners to involve in the actions as a self-financier. This paper is aimed to make EER measures on buildings' envelope more applicable in Turkey through reduction of investment cost in order to encourage owners to have self-financier role in the actions. The case buildings ...
Positive Energy Districts (PED) are areas within cities that generate more renewable energy than ... more Positive Energy Districts (PED) are areas within cities that generate more renewable energy than they consume, contributing to cities’ energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. Since PED is a novel concept, the implementation is very challenging. Within the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) Action, which offers an open space for collaboration among scientists across Europe (and beyond), this paper asks what the needs for supporting the implementation of PEDs are. To answer this, it draws on Delphi process (expert reviews) as the main method alongside the literature review and also uses surveys as supplementary methods to identify the main challenges for developing PEDs. Initial findings reveal seven interacting topics that later were ranked as highest to the lowest as the following: governance, incentive, social, process, market, technology and context. These are interrelated and interdependent, implying that none can be considered in isolation of th...
Abstract The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the c... more Abstract The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the construction sector. Hence, they are consuming an enormous energy amount that can be preserved considerably by applying some not even advanced retrofit measures. Schools' low budget is a problem that managers are encountered. Thus the high retrofit cost can prevent taking proper actions. However, considering the measures leading to higher energy efficiency with appropriate cost and payback period, together with taking the lifespan of buildings and the economic benefits during this extended period, would make the actions attractive. This research aims at defining a multi-parameter approach to distinguish energy efficient measures with proper cost, payback period and CO2 emission for primary school buildings’ retrofit. It is following the concept of cost-optimal building retrofit introduced by the EPBD-recast. To assess the proposed approach, two typical school buildings were considered as case studies, the model was created and validated by real consumptions, and then some measures were applied to the envelope, mechanical and lighting system. After driven cost-optimal measures, the comfort analyses were conducted and some of the measures were excluded due to worsening the comfort conditions. The results indicate that, in the suitable cost-optimal scenarios, the potential of primary energy savings and CO2 emission reductions are approximately 60%, and savings for global cost would amount to more than 42%, while the payback periods are less than seven years.
The energy conversations methods and techniques take a significant role in the energy performance... more The energy conversations methods and techniques take a significant role in the energy performance of the buildings. Façade and shading systems are in continuous development, and recent studies are showing the importance of implementation of such systems to reduce energy consumption and enhance the effectiveness of the building performance. School buildings are mostly being used during daytime, hence, require active use of sunlight. A measure that is taken on a school building envelope can prevent overheating and overcooling and reduce the heating and cooling energy consumption but at the same time can increase the lighting energy consumption vice versa. Thus, it is necessary to optimise the energy required for climatisation of a building with lighting energy demand. The main aim of the paper is to provide analysis for façade and shading systems applied to a school building and study the effectiveness of it on energy consumption and conservation. The case study for this paper is a ty...
Recast version of Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD-Recast) obligate member states t... more Recast version of Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD-Recast) obligate member states to keep the cost analysis in parallel with the energy analysis during the renovation actions for the existing building by taking the cost-optimal level of minimum energy performance requirement to the account. Although this cost-optimal level is indicating the minimum cost level for a period, it can provide buildings’ owners with an enormous initial cost. One of the most challenging barriers to energy efficient and cost-optimal renovation of existing buildings is the reluctance of owners to involve in their project as an investor due to the high cost of application. Particularly in developing countries, such reluctance is more tangible as the governments are not capable of providing enough financial incentives for owners due to a large number of buildings that should be renovated and small available budget. A proper solution for the problem is to divide necessary actions for each building...
Energy efficiency of existing buildings is a concept to manage and restrain the growth in energy ... more Energy efficiency of existing buildings is a concept to manage and restrain the growth in energy consumption and one of the crucial issues due to the magnitude of the sector. Educational buildings are in charge of about 15% of the total energy consumption of the non-residential building sector. However, not only operational but also embodied energy of a building should be reduced to get the overall benefits of energy efficiency, where, using energy efficient architectural measures and low emitting materials during every retrofit action can be a logical step. The majority of buildings in Turkey and EU was built earlier than the development of the energy efficiency in the construction sector, hence, without energy retrofit, consume an enormous amount of energy that can be averted significantly by the implementation of some even not advanced retrofit measures. Furthermore, demolishing of a building to construct a new one is not a rational approach concerning cost, time and environmenta...
Energy efficiency has become a crucial part of human life, which has an adverse impact on the soc... more Energy efficiency has become a crucial part of human life, which has an adverse impact on the social and economic development of any country. In Turkey, it is a critical issue especially in the construction sector due to increase in the dependency on the fuel demands. The energy consumption, which is used during the life cycle of a building, is a huge amount affected by the energy demand for material and building construction, HVAC and lighting systems, maintenance, equipment, and demolition. In general, the Life Cycle Energy (LCE) needs of the building can be summarised as the operational and embodied energy together with the energy use for demolition and recycling processes.Besides, schools alone are responsible for about 15% of the total energy consumption of the commercial building sector. To reduce the energy use and CO2 emission, the operational and embodied energy of the buildings must be minimised. Overall, it seems that choosing proper architectural measures for the envelop...
Abstract There has been an increasing interest in studying energy efficiency in buildings in the ... more Abstract There has been an increasing interest in studying energy efficiency in buildings in the recent years, as they account for a significant portion of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. While most of the studies focus on the buildings' operational phase, a substantial part of buildings' energy consumption is disguised as embodied energy. It is impossible to have a zero energy building, as it is necessary to use materials to build the building, and those materials need to produce and transport energy. Life Cycle Analysis is the utmost efficient method to assess how a building affects the environment. Notably, the impact of buildings on the environment across their lifespans are determined by some factors, which comprise materials, design, construction, use and demolition. The study aims to present the implementation of a life cycle approach and occupant thermal comfort during the school building's energy efficiency design. The study's principal objective focuses on the energy use and environmental impact linked to various alternatives of building envelopes in different climates. Within this context, a reference building located in three different climatic regions of Turkey is investigated. Two ranges of efficiency comprise the focal points of the study. Cost-optimal and nearly zero energy levels are defined for each city. In the hot climate, the cost-optimal scenario cannot improve the comfort conditions, whereas the nZEB scenario improves slightly in such a context. In temperate and cold climates, both strategies can improve comfort conditions. The share of embodied energy and carbon in the nZEB level can reach higher than 80 percent, whereas it is lower than 15 percent in the cost-optimal level.
The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the constructi... more The majority of the buildings was built before the energy efficiency prospering in the construction sector. Hence, they are consuming an enormous energy amount that can be preserved considerably by applying some not even advanced retrofit measures. Schools' low budget is a problem that managers are encountered. Thus the high retrofit cost can prevent taking proper actions. However, considering the measures leading to higher energy efficiency with appropriate cost and payback period, together with taking the lifespan of buildings and the economic benefits during this extended period, would make the actions attractive. This research aims at defining a multi-parameter approach to distinguish energy efficient measures with proper cost, payback period and CO2 emission for primary school buildings’ retrofit. It is following the concept of cost-optimal building retrofit introduced by the EPBD-recast. To assess the proposed approach, two typical school buildings were considered as case studies, the model was created and validated by real consumptions, and then some measures were applied to the envelope, mechanical and lighting system. After driven cost-optimal measures, the comfort analyses were conducted and some of the measures were excluded due to worsening the comfort conditions. The results indicate that, in the suitable cost-optimal scenarios, the potential of primary energy savings and CO2 emission reductions are approximately 60%, and savings for global cost would amount to more than 42%, while the payback periods are less than seven years.
Various investigations have confirmed that pupils and teachers’ learning/teaching performance and... more Various investigations have confirmed that pupils and teachers’ learning/teaching performance and health depend heavily on the quality and amount of daylight and indoor thermal conditions. The primary aim of using natural light in schools is to reduce energy consumption and costs, but it should also improve students’ performance. An appropriate configuration of windows improves visual and thermal comfort by reducing glare, distributing light and controlling solar energy gain.
The study focuses on the impact of different transparency ratios (WWR) and window combinations in two critical orientations (west and east) on occupants’ comfort and the energy demands of a classroom. A building was selected for a case study investigation at the design stage. One east-facing and one west-facing classroom were studied. The two classrooms were simulated with the aid of the lighting and energy simulation programs DIALux Evo 6.0, DesignBuilder 5.5 and EnergyPlus 8.9. The results indicated that a glazing ratio of 50% would reduce the requirement for artificial lighting by at least 15% as well as providing more comfortable conditions.
A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are... more A glimpse into the past of ancient countries, there is prominent traditional buildings, which are worth full throughout the generations in and these heritages have significant roles regarding sustainability. The climate has an important impact on the related architecture. As a result, constructors tried to use possible strategies regarding natural climatic for coping with harsh conditions. To exemplify, in a hot and arid climate of Iran, the main difficulties are encountering with the deficiency of water and humidity, severe climate-enforced architects to build their houses with extraordinary measures to meet. The most important strategies include proper layout orientation, the distance between buildings, building’ direction and form, climatic elements such as wind-catcher, central courtyard, etc. In the ancient architecture of Iran and the most of the Middle East countries, wind-catchers play a crucial role to provide thermal comfort for occupants, especially in hot climates. The paper aims to focus on the traditional housing in hot and arid climate of Iran. It is a country with different climatic zones, and, traditional builders have presented several logical climatic solutions to improve human comfort and energy efficiency of the buildings. Kashan, which is located in the province of Isfahan, is selected to be a representative city. To evaluating different strategies, the case study building’ energy performance was calculated by the aid of dynamic simulation tools, Design Builder, and Energy Plus. Various scenarios are applied on the wind-catchers, windows and different thickness of the materials to analyze the energy performance of building in various circumstance.
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Papers by Touraj Ashrafian
The study focuses on the impact of different transparency ratios (WWR) and window combinations in two critical orientations (west and east) on occupants’ comfort and the energy demands of a classroom. A building was selected for a case study investigation at the design stage. One east-facing and one west-facing classroom were studied. The two classrooms were simulated with the aid of the lighting and energy simulation programs DIALux Evo 6.0, DesignBuilder 5.5 and EnergyPlus 8.9. The results indicated that a glazing ratio of 50% would reduce the requirement for artificial lighting by at least 15% as well as providing more comfortable conditions.
The study focuses on the impact of different transparency ratios (WWR) and window combinations in two critical orientations (west and east) on occupants’ comfort and the energy demands of a classroom. A building was selected for a case study investigation at the design stage. One east-facing and one west-facing classroom were studied. The two classrooms were simulated with the aid of the lighting and energy simulation programs DIALux Evo 6.0, DesignBuilder 5.5 and EnergyPlus 8.9. The results indicated that a glazing ratio of 50% would reduce the requirement for artificial lighting by at least 15% as well as providing more comfortable conditions.