Energy Efficiency in Office Buildings Through Solar Applications
Abstract
Usage of modern technologies and innovations may easily decrease energy consumption in a building. But how profitable such a complicated system is for real? Complicating the equipment which aims efficiency increase leads to higher number of components in it, respectively higher probability of damage and the necessity of repairing it. The energy put and the CO2 burnt in production of each component is another question. In most cases no matter how efficient a system is it cannot save the energy and CO2 put into its production. So, with this project I would like to demonstrate that an architect can create efficient office building by using mainly passive solar applications. The following work is about: heating and cooling systems, air comfort, lighting, power supply, hot water supply, relaxation and recreation. The building is situated in the center of Sofia (Fig.1). This is a region characterized by daily maximal direct sun lightening during winter time of 244 w/m² and summer time up to 700 w/m². Average sun heating for Sofia is 2100 hours or in other words – annual value of sun light is about 1400 kW [1]. The building is situated east – west. Both walls - the south and the north one are blind walls, which is preventing the cooling from the north facade, and overheating from the southern one. Maximum usage of sun radiation is reached by duplicating all the solar systems on both sides. One facade uses first half of the day, the other – second one. Thus the risk of overheating during sunny days is decreased. All systems which are providing the building proper functioning are connected and controlled by autonomous server and specially developed software, called just “controller”.