Overheating risk of a typical Norwegian residential building retrofitted to higher energy standards under future climate conditions

Abstract

Heat waves had attacked Norway in 2018 and 2019. Residents in Norway experienced a very uncomfortable indoor environment in the summer of 2018 and 2019. Few publications on the overheating risk of a typical Norwegian residential building under future climate change conditions were found. The typical Norwegian residential building retrofitted according to the minimum Norwegian energy requirements in the Norwegian Building Act of 2010 (Pbl2010/TEK17) and the international EnerPHit Standard was modelled in this study. Overheating risk of the typical residential building was simulated by Energy Plus engine via Ladybug and Honeybee plugins based on the Grasshopper. Overheating hours of the studied rooms under present-day, the 2050s and the 2080s weather conditions were shown. Too good airtightness does increase the overheating risk of the building when retrofitted to higher energy standards. It was found in this study that better insulation does reduce the overheating hours of the bedrooms slightly. This may be caused by low g-value of the windows based on recommendation according to the EnerPHit Standard. Overheating should be paid more attention in term of the expected future climate conditions. These results can provide some references to the buildings retrofitted to high-performance buildings.

Optimization of Window Design for Daylight and Thermal Comfort in Cold Climate Conditions

“…In light of the analysis, optimizing window design is a necessary measure since it contributes to a significant decrease in the energy demand for heating and cooling, providing a balance in terms of optimal conditions for thermal comfort and daylight, in cold climates as well. The results presented for Case 2, with thicker walls, indicate that focusing primarily on well-insulated and more air-tight walls does not exclude the possibility that a significant risk of overheating can occur if a conscious window design is not included, which further confirms the findings by Tian and Hrynyszyn [17]. This means that technical regulations at the national level should include extended and clearly defined requirements, including thermal comfort and daylight to provide more holistic and sustainable solutions for housing, especially in terms of the expected climate changes.…”

“…One of their findings was that passive adaptations were not sufficient enough to eliminate overheating, and it is likely that by the 2080s, active cooling will be a necessity. Tian and Hrynyszyn [17] found in their study that a retrofitting to higher energy standards by improving the airtightness of a building can increase the risk of overheating, even in cold climates. They highlighted that overheating should be paid more attention to based on the expected future climate conditions.…”

Solutions for retrofitting existing, wooden houses in cold climates

“…Intelligent control systems integrated with windows to optimize the solar energy contribution more dynamically, to increase the well-being of residents when it comes to indoor climate conditions and at the same time improve the building's energy performance, will be needed now and in the future due to the expected climate change [18].…”

Predicting annual illuminance and operative temperature in residential buildings using artificial neural networks

“…With hotter climate there has been increasingly challenge with overheating in buildings (Tian and Hrynyszyn, 2020). In addition, centralization and stricter building codes has led us to build more compact, making it more challenging to achieve daylight criteria in new building projects (Reinhart andSelkowitz, 2006, Chen andYang, 2015).…”