Factsheets reporting solution set description and metrics for each climate-cultural geo-cluster

The main aim of Cultural-E project is to provide the evidence base and tools to underpin a shift in practice towards Plus Energy Houses becoming a mainstream building product.

Climate and cultural tailored solution sets have been developed to reach the Plus Energy targets in different geoclusters. Solution sets are combination of technologies already present on the market (e.g. photovoltaic/battery systems, thermal insulation materials, thermal mass activation and storage, shading systems, and so on) with the technologies developed within Cultural-E project (the cloud-based House Management System, the Active Window System, the smart air movement system and the decentralized Packed Heat Pump System). The climate and cultural tailored solution sets consider drivers related to typological building architecture, adapting bioclimatic design strategies to modern architecture, as well as solutions to improve users’ (households’) cultural practices. A key focus of the work is the integration of technologies within the solution sets, including sizing, coordination and control systems.

The solution sets evaluation is a result of several analysis processes including:

• Energy simulations to assess the energy consumption of different archetypes in different climatic conditions, define two technological solution sets, consider the interaction with the energy grid and the use of the PV system and gave insights on thermal comfort within the built environment.

• Life cycle environmental impact assessment of the defined cases, with interesting results at different scales (component, solution set, building) and providing both static and dynamic results.

• Economical assessment of life cycle cost, which also resulted in a practical excel-based tool, allowed to assess the total annual cost considering a timespan of 30 years.

Cultural-E deliverable D4.7 “Factsheets reporting solution set description and metrics for each climate-cultural geo-cluster” aims at merging all the mentioned results in publicly available factsheets for each analysed solution sets. Such solution sets were defined through a structured methodology, whose results were reported in factsheets for which dedicate interpretation were also developed. The aim of the factsheets is to provide a consistent evaluation of developed solution sets to building designers, building system engineers and potentially stakeholders as building energy managers, and developers. The evaluation includes energy consumption, indoor environment quality, life cycle costs and environmental impact. This information will give the reader more insight and sensibility on the effect of the building typology, geo-cluster and set of technological solutions on energy, grid interaction, LCA, LCC and indoor environmental conditions. The energy, grid interaction, and indoor environmental conditions assessment are achieved through the modelling and simulation of the considered cases by a Building Energy Simulation tool (in this case, TRNSYS). LCA analyses were performed with the software GaBi ts, while LCC outcomes come from an ad-hoc developed excel tool.

Moreover, the factsheets improve the reader’s awareness on the so-called “conflicting practices”, rising from cultural and social aspects; this is achieved through examples extrapolated from semi-structured interviews.