Reducing Annual Heating Energy Consumption of A Building By The Sunspace Application

Abstract

In recent years, renewable energy sources and correspondingly the use of passive solar energy systems in buildings have gained importance. This study focuses on the reduction of the annual heating energy consumption of a building located in Istanbul by the application of sunspace as a passive solar heating system. At the beginning of the study, the heating and cooling energy consumptions of the reference building was determined. In the next step, the effects of the sunspace that designed on the southern facade of the reference building, to the heating and cooling energy consumptions were analyzed on a monthly basis by the IES<VE> program. The glass surfaces of the designed sunspace consist of double glazing filled with argon, which can provide heat control. The area in which the sunspace and the heated environment are adjacent is also made of the same type of glass. After the application of the sunspace designed with these conditions, the annual heating energy consumption of the building has been reduced from 4,6708 MWh to 3,0876 MWh and a saving of 33,8% has been achieved. Although sunspace can save considerable amount of heating energy consumption on cold winter days, overheating problem occurs in summer period. In order to prevent this problem and also prevent solar radiation enter to the sunspace, the curtains were used as a shading element on the roof of sunspace. With this application, the extra cooling energy consumption was reduced, but still was very high compared to the first case. At the final step, the same shading element was applied to all glazed surfaces of the sunspace and the increase in cooling energy consumption was largely eliminated.