Methods and New Results for Design Recommendations on Sustainable Solar and Passive Housing in Emerging Countries and in Mediterranean Climate Zones
Abstract
Emerging countries like Chile in Latin America with their rapidly growing economy and energy use in the housing sector present new challenges for ecological and social sustainability. Sustainable passive and solar housing, including passive cooling and passive solar heating here, is a promising strategy to improve thermal comfort in the Mediterranean climate of Central Chile with its hot and dry summers and cool, but sunny winters. The solutions for sustainable passive housing depend on the specific climatic, social and economical conditions of the target group and region. Accordingly, the investigation was based on the concept of applying advanced methods of research in order to develop simple and flexible concepts and tools for the design of passive houses, which can be effectively adapted to the implementation under varying conditions. The evaluation of thermal building behavior is based on extensive parametric studies, both for a reference room and for complete passive houses. The thermal simulations were realized with Derob-LTH and a test year for Central Chile with hourly climate data, prepared with an own methodology. The results include both an analysis based on crucial building parameters and systematic design recommendations for important building elements and passive climatization strategies. The design recommendations for simple and advanced solar and passive houses show that with an optimized design and thermal management of houses, it's possible to improve significantly the thermal comfort conditions in economically accessible dwellings of the region. Thermal energy use can be limited to renewable sources, mainly solar energy. The methodology and approach developed are extendable to other regions and climate zones of Latin America and emerging countries. That way the latest results of the author's participation in an international scientific cooperation and the research for his advanced PhD-thesis are presented as a contribution to sustainable building. Key-words: solar architecture; passive design; thermal comfort; thermal simulation; sustainable building.