scholarly journals Indoor Temperature Improvement and Energy-Saving Renovations in Rural Houses of China’s Cold Region—A Case Study of Shandong Province

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 870 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanqiu Cui ◽  
Ninghan Sun ◽  
Hongbin Cai ◽  
Simeng Li
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Shandong Province ◽  
Indoor Temperature ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Level Of Economic Development ◽  
Improvement Measures ◽  
Insulation Performance

With the continuous implementation of a plan for reconstruction of “Beautiful Countryside” in China, the rural environment and appearance of rural houses have been significantly improved. However, those houses in cold areas of China have great trouble with indoor temperature and heating-related energy consumption. After investigating the current situation of the layout, building envelope, indoor temperature, and energy consumption of the rural houses renovated by the plan of “Beautiful Countryside” in Shandong Province, this paper puts forward the improvement measures of raising indoor temperature and reducing energy consumption. On this basis, a typical rural house was selected, and DesignBuilder was utilized to simulate the effects before and after the application of different renovation measures for this house. The results show that the main way to raise indoor temperature and reduce energy consumption is to improve the thermal insulation performance of the building envelope, including renovation of the roof, exterior walls, doors and windows, and attached sunspace. In addition, combined with the achievements of “Beautiful Countryside” reconstruction, this paper shall propose specific renovation practices which are suitable for different rural houses. Based on the level of economic development in rural areas, it also puts forward some feasible renovation paths for different rural areas, and further provides references for other areas to carry out relevant work in the future.

scholarly journals Online Implementation of a Soft Actor-Critic Agent to Enhance Indoor Temperature Control and Energy Efficiency in Buildings

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 997
Author(s):  
Davide Coraci ◽  
Silvio Brandi ◽  
Marco Savino Piscitelli ◽  
Alfonso Capozzoli
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Temperature Control ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Heating System ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Indoor Temperature ◽  
Model Free ◽  
Occupancy Patterns ◽  
Online Implementation ◽  
Indoor Temperature Control

Recently, a growing interest has been observed in HVAC control systems based on Artificial Intelligence, to improve comfort conditions while avoiding unnecessary energy consumption. In this work, a model-free algorithm belonging to the Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) class, Soft Actor-Critic, was implemented to control the supply water temperature to radiant terminal units of a heating system serving an office building. The controller was trained online, and a preliminary sensitivity analysis on hyperparameters was performed to assess their influence on the agent performance. The DRL agent with the best performance was compared to a rule-based controller assumed as a baseline during a three-month heating season. The DRL controller outperformed the baseline after two weeks of deployment, with an overall performance improvement related to control of indoor temperature conditions. Moreover, the adaptability of the DRL agent was tested for various control scenarios, simulating changes of external weather conditions, indoor temperature setpoint, building envelope features and occupancy patterns. The agent dynamically deployed, despite a slight increase in energy consumption, led to an improvement of indoor temperature control, reducing the cumulative sum of temperature violations on average for all scenarios by 75% and 48% compared to the baseline and statically deployed agent respectively.

Effect of the Window Position in the Building Envelope on Energy Consumption

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 1861
Author(s):  
Neveen Y. Azmy ◽  
Rania E. Ashmawy
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Light Intensity ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Lower Energy ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Natural Lighting ◽  
Energy Plus ◽  
Window Position

Windows play a significant role as they largely influence the energy load. Although there are many studies on the energy-efficient windows design, there is still a lack in information about the mutual impact of windows’ size, position and orientation on the energy loads. In this paper, the effect of different window positions and orientations on the energy consumption in a typical room in an administrative building that is located in the hot climatic conditions of Cairo city, Egypt is considered. This case study has been modeled and analyzed to achieve good environmental performance for architectural space, as well as assessing its impact on the amount of natural lighting required by using the Energy Plus program. The study concludes that the WWR (Window Wall Ratio) 20% square north-oriented upper  opening consumes 25% lower energy than the rectangular 3:1 opening in the lower west-oriented façade. The upper openings are the highest in terms of light intensity, as they cover about 50% of the room area. The WWR 30% rectangular north-oriented upper 3:1 opening consumes 29% lower energy than the rectangular lower 3:1opening in the façade. Regarding light intensity, the upper openings are the best for natural lighting as the light covers more than 60% of the room area.                                                                                                                                                               

scholarly journals Evaluating Insulation, Glazing and Airtightness Options for Passivhaus EnerPHit Retrofitting of a Dwelling in China’s Hot Summer–Cold Winter Climate Region

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (21) ◽  
pp. 6950
Author(s):  
Chenfei Liu ◽  
Stephen Sharples ◽  
Haniyeh Mohammadpourkarbasi
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Saving ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Cold Winter ◽  
Winter Climate ◽  
Climate Region ◽  
Low Energy Consumption ◽  
Insulation Performance

Passivhaus EnerPHit is a rigorous retrofit energy standard for buildings, based on high thermal insulation and airtightness levels, which aims to significantly reduce building energy consumption during operation. However, extra retrofit materials are required to achieve this standard, which raises a contradiction between how to balance the environmental impacts of the retrofitting material inputs and extremely low energy consumption after retrofit. This motivated the analysis in this paper, which aimed to evaluate the possibilities of reducing the required retrofitting material inputs when trying to achieve the EnerPHit energy standard using a typical suburban dwelling in China’s hot summer–cold winter climate region as a case study. Firstly, how the insulation performance of each envelope component affected the building’s energy consumption was analysed. Based on this, sensitivity simulations of combinations of different insulation levels with different fabric components were investigated under four scenarios of insulation levels, airtightness and glazing choice. The final proposed retrofitting plans achieved the EnerPHit standard with insulation materials’ savings between 18% to 58% compared to a baseline retrofit plan, and this led, in turn, to 3.9 to 12.6 tonnes of carbon reductions. Moreover, an energy-saving of 87% in heating and 70% in cooling was achieved compared with the pre-retrofit dwelling.

Building Envelope Design Optimization of a Hypothetical Classroom Considering Energy Consumption, Daylighting, and Thermal Comfort: Case Study in Lhokseumawe, Indonesia

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1217
Author(s):  
Fahmi Nur Hakim ◽  
Yana Muhamadinah ◽  
Atthaillah Atthaillah ◽  
Rizki A. Mangkuto ◽  
Anugrah S. Sudarsono
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Design Optimization ◽  
Building Envelope

Research on Environment of Dwellings with Rammed Earth Walls in Deqin Area in Yunnan Province

2012 ◽  
Vol 424-425 ◽  
pp. 957-961
Author(s):  
Li Ping Li
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Environment ◽  
Field Testing ◽  
Heat Stability ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Rammed Earth ◽  
Indoor Temperature ◽  
Temperature Changes ◽  
Rammed Earth Wall ◽  
Earth Walls ◽  
Insulation Performance

Based on the field testing and analysis of the Tibetan dwelling in Deqin area , and more specifically, the indoor temperature of Tibetan-style dwellings with rammed earth walls as well as the surface temperature of building envelope were tested and comparatively analyzed. The test results show the current situations and features of indoor temperature changes of Tibetan-style dwellings of earth materials, the heat-insulation performance and heat stability of rammed earth wall, which may provide a basis for improving the thermal environment of Tibetan-style dwellings.

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