Abstract:The Korean government has established a national plan for the promotion of zero energy buildings to respond to climate change and energy crises. To achieve this plan, several energy efficiency policies for new and existing buildings have been developed. The Building Energy Efficiency Certification System (BEECS) aims to promote the spread of high energy-efficient buildings by evaluating and certifying building energy performance. This study discussed Korean building energy efficiency policies and analyzed especially the influence of the BEECS on the actual energy consumption of a residential building and calculated energy performance of non-residential buildings. The BEECS was evaluated to have influence on gas and district heating consumption in residential buildings. For non-residential buildings, a decreasing trend was shown in calculated primary energy consumption in the years since the BEECS has been enacted. Appropriate improvements of the certification system were also discussed by analyzing relationship between building characteristics and their energy consumptions.
The emission rates of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from building materials and the resulting indoor concentrations are influenced by temperature. Radiant floor heating systems are widely used in most residential buildings in Korea, and VOC emissions from flooring materials increase as the floor temperature rises. In this study, a numerical model is presented to evaluate the VOC emissions from building materials at different temperatures depending on the heating conditions. A coupled model is developed to simulate the temperature variation of building materials and VOC emissions in the floor heated space, which combines the building heat transfer model for materials and indoor air temperature with the mass transfer model for VOC emissions and indoor VOC concentrations. The model was validated by a mock-up test, and it was then used to examine the emission characteristics from flooring materials under different heating conditions. The results show that emissions of VOC from flooring materials tend to increase as the floor temperature rises during the heating condition.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.