Environmental Performance

Overview

This project will increase the credibility and usability of existing procedures for calculating the energy and environmental performance of buildings. No restriction on the type of building or calculation procedure is foreseen. Consideration will be given therefore both to domestic and non-domestic buildings: to calculation procedures suitable both at the design stage and for example energy auditing.

Calculation procedures for assessing the thermal performance of buildings can be used at different stages of the design process and for assessing and improving the performance of existing buildings. The larger detailed simulation programs tend to be used by expert practitioners, while simpler calculation procedures have more widespread use and are often included in national codes or engineering guides. The rapid current developments in computing will enable more powerful analysis techniques to be used by a wider range of users.

Despite these advantages, there are some serious obstacles to their use which either prevent their proper use or more widespread acceptance by practitioners. These include a lack of transparency in the methods and a lack of well documented, reliable and appropriate data for use with the calculation methods. There is also a need for much better guidance on how they should be used.

This project addresses these major obstacles. It is divided into four subtasks:

1. Documentation of Existing Methods
2. Appropriate Use of Models and Environment for Integrated Design
3. Reference Cases and Evaluation Procedures.
4. Design Support Environments