Powerhouse – Integrating Solar in an Energy Plus Refurbishment of Office Building.
Abstract
Powerhouse is a project in which actors in the Norwegian building sector collaborate to develop energy- positive buildings. A Powerhouse is defined as a building that during its lifecycle produces more renewable energy than it consumes for the production of building materials, construction, operation and demolition of the building. This paper describes how two office buildings outside Oslo, Norway, built in 1980, have been reconstructed to satisfy the powerhouse definition. The buildings have an area of 5.180 m2 (internal area without outer walls). In addition to a very well insulated building envelope, the building will be equipped with heat pumps gaining heat from energy wells and a 310 kW PV system generating 230 MWh/year. These measures will reduce the annual energy consumption from 240 kWh/m2 to approximately 50 kWh/m2 (including internal loads). Since the requirements for a Powerhouse includes the energy use for the production of the materials, a detailed LCA has been carried out. In order to minimize embodied energy for the refurbished buildings, the Powerhouse rehabilitation also utilized recycled building materials such as used facade glass for doors and interior walls. The rehabilitated Powerhouse Kjørbo was completed in February 2014. Introduction The Powerhouse collaboration consists of major actors within the building and construction sector in Norway; a real estate owner / developer (Entra Eiendom AS), a construction company (Skanska Norway), an architect firm (Snøhetta Architechts AS), an environmental organization (Zero), and a Norwegian actor in the aluminum industry (Hydro) and as tenant, Asplan Viak AS, a leading Norwegian consulting firm also contributed in designing main elements i.e. the energy system in the building. The Norwegian Research Centre on zero emission buildings (ZEB) has also participated in the project. ZEB is hosted by The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Energy-positive buildings have to solve two challenges within the same project: Firstly, energy demand has to be reduced as much as possible. Secondly, remaining energy demand has to be produced within defined boundaries. Buildings in Norway account for approximately 40 per cent of the country’s domestic energy consumption, of which half of this is used for heating. The Norwegian building sector possesses an important
Keywords
Key in reducing the norwegian greenhouse gas emissions.