Case studies of energy consumption in residential buildings in Russia's middle belt area

Abstract

This paper describes the analytical results of heating energy consumption monitoring and the determination of heat protection levels for both single-family and multi-family buildings in Russia. Experiments have been jointly conducted by Russian and American researchers from the Research Institute for Building Physics, Gosstroy of Russia, and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The paper describes qualimetric methods which provide a quantitative estimation of thermal and energy performance by using instrumental facilities and non-destructive methods. The first Section gives a brief methodological summary for determining on-site building energy and thermal performance. The second part reviews the field results of energy monitoring to determine techniques that may result in the highest energy conservation effect for standard single-family houses in Russia. The third Section presents a comparative energy analysis of the use of highly insulating windows in a multi-family apartment building in field conditions. The experiments conducted prove that it is possible to ensure a 20–25% reduction in energy consumption for residential buildings under actual conditions existing in Russia. Finally, a methodology for assessing whole-building energy consumption for multi-family buildings is described.