The impact of natural ventilation on building energy requirement at inter-building scale

Abstract

Inter-building effect is responsible for affecting buildings' primary energy requirement for heating, cooling, and lighting. Nevertheless, the impact of natural ventilation should also be considered while predicting building energy demand, since it is documented to substantially affect indoor environmental quality and thermal comfort. This paper investigates the impact of natural ventilation on building primary energy requirement prediction. The Inter-Building Effect (IBE) approach is applied in a typical residential block in Italy. A sensitivity analysis is performed to determine the key input parameter among (i) climate boundary, (ii) infiltration rate, (iii) opening percentage, and (iv) wind strength. Two scenarios, i.e. the stand-alone building and the same building surrounded by its neighborhood, are compared. The thermal-energy dynamic simulation of the different scenarios is carried out to investigate the impact of outdoor airflows on building primary energy requirement for heating and cooling and on indoor thermal comfort, investigated by means of the Thermal Deviation Index method. Inaccuracies in energy need prediction imputable to natural ventilation without taking into account the IBE are detected. The findings show that IBE is much more affected by buildings' opening percentage, infiltration rate, and local wind compared to the weather context since IBE is a local microscale phenomenon. NomenclatureSA Stand-alone configuration of the case study building i.e. 1° case scenario N Network configuration of the case study building i.e. 2° case scenario IBE first version of Inter-Building Effect accounting for primary energy for heating and cooling IBE II second version of Inter-Building Effect accounting for primary energy for heating and cooling, and lighting IP input parameter OP output parameter SC sensitivity coefficient TDI thermal deviation indexTDI b-s building thermal deviation index referred to the building performance for each season "s" (-) TDI BC-S base case thermal deviation index for each season "s" (°C h) TDI b,site-s thermal deviation index referred to the building performance freely from the climate (-) TDI site-s thermal deviation index for each season s referred to the building in relation to the climate °Ch) TDI max,i maximum value of the OP for each i-th IP TDI min,i minimum value of the OP for each i-th IP T a-s location sol-air temperature calculated on a reference horizontal surface (°C) T O-in indoor thermal zone operative temperature (°C) T O,M-s , T O,m-s seasonal target range limits of T O-in (°C) t s seasonal analysis period (h) t T-s , t T-s,site periods during which T O-in and T a-s,site respectively are within the thermal seasonal target (h) T M-s,site , T m-s,site sol-air temperature range limits (°C) P h , P c periods during which T O-in is out of the seasonal thermal target (h) P h,site , P c,site periods during which T a-s is out of the site seasonal thermal target (h) IP i generic input parameter IP max,i maximum value of the i-th IP IP min,i minimum values of the i-th ...

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