Energy poverty (EP) is a problem that affects a large part of the world population, leaving those most vulnerable to suffer from unhealthy indoor conditions in their homes, being cold in winter months, struggling with their monetary situation, and even reducing social activities with relatives. In this context, it is important to assess EP situations and identify those factors that most affect each one. This paper, through the evaluation and adaptation of the Three-dimensional and Territorial Indicator of Energy Poverty (EPITT in Spanish), developed by the Energy Poverty Network in Chile (RedPE Chile), assesses the different EP situations in a social-housing case study located in south-central Chile. The results show different EP situations depending on the dimensions studied, e.g., 35% of households had food and hygiene issues, 27% had issues with lighting and electrical devices, 72% with climate control in the home, and 68% experienced equality in energy expenditure issues. It is possible to say that energy expenditure is the dimension that most influences the EP situation. Furthermore, the values in the different dimensions are below the national average, mainly because of the poor quality of housing, limitations in access to energy, and low income. In conclusion, the adaptation of EPTTI provides a better understanding of EP vulnerability at the local scale.
Retrofitting of existing buildings offers significant opportunities to reduce global energy use and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is considered as one of the main approaches to achieve sustainability in the built environment at a relatively low cost. Although there is a wide range of retrofitting technologies available, methods to identify the most cost-effective measures for each project remain a major technical challenge. Numerous projects have been developed worldwide to face this challenge with different approaches; however, many of the tools meet only local objectives, which is why they are unknown in the international arena, showing a limited transfer of knowledge. This review organizes the results under three categories: renovation assessment, financial assessment, and transfer of knowledge. The tools focusing on promoting the renovation of buildings differ in the type of user, for example, the owners, politicians, or investors. The tools dealing with financial assessment suggest different methods to evaluate and calculate the cost savings, construction costs, and return forecasts through retrofit interventions. Other tools comply with the policies that seek to register, evaluate, and characterize the existing buildings. This review provides researchers, construction professionals, and politicians with a better understanding of the advances made to effectively design building retrofitting measures and promote energy conservation as well as the assessment of the building stock for the development of policies. The review shows that many tools have the potential of joining their capabilities, which can create many opportunities for innovation in the retrofitting area.
In order to reduce the increasing energy consumption for the domestic demands of existing single-family housing and take advantage of frequent building enlargements, this paper presents a methodology and supporting software tool for determining the optimal design configuration of an attic with integrated solar collectors. The analysis procedure is based on parametric modeling, energy simulation and the use of evolutionary algorithms for finding optimal designs. It has been implemented as a Web-platform for public use that provides users with a proposal of an attic shape with maximum solar energy collection, maximum living space and minimum construction envelope for each house according its size and orientation. The attic integrates PV, thermal and hybrid solar panels on one side of the roof. This paper describes the methodology and software design, assessment of the Web-platform usage and case-studies to verify its behavior. In a matter of minutes, the Web-platform enables users to select a specific attic design for each house that has integrated solar collectors that can produce energy to cover almost 100% of domestic energy consumption. The attics designed provide a nearly 30% increase in living space through the extension of one to four rooms, and the construction cost of the envelope is similar to that of a standard housing extension.
Evaluating the energy and thermal performance of existing buildings during their lifetime brings about uncertainty, since there is strong evidence suggesting that climate change (CC) will affect indoor environment quality. CC has been reflected, among other phenomena, in a temperature rise that is necessarily related to the indoor temperature of buildings. Recognizing possible future climate scenarios and their possible effects will allow improving the resilience of existing buildings. Today’s buildings are sources of high energy demand. In the case of Chile, an ordinary house, due to its poor thermal performance, requires between 40% and 60% of its energy consumption for heating or cooling, depending on the location. On the other hand, a constructive phenomenon has been seen in Latin American cities over the last three decades, where city centres are densified with high-rise residential buildings. These are characterized by very small apartments, which affect indoor environment quality, solar gains, ventilation, etc. Thus, the proposal of this paper is to evaluate this residential typology. The aim of this research is to prospectively study the effects produced by CC on the energy-thermal performance of high-rise residential buildings, using an exploratory research, in three different thermal zones of Chile through to 2080. The analysis consists in comparing the performance of the same case built in three cities, using the Design Builder software for dynamic simulations. The results show a temperature increase that affects apartments in different ways. In the northernmost city, Iquique, the heating demand would disappear in 60 years; in Santiago, it will be reduced by half and in the south, while in Puerto Montt, it will represent only 62% of current demand; however, the cooling demand will increase in all cases. While hours within the comfort range will increase in the southernmost cities, in the northernmost and central cities, the risk of overheating will increase significantly This provides great challenges in terms of improving thermal comfort for the coming years, incorporating possible CC impacts into housing design to prevent negative results, such as overheating.
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