Abstract
Passive building design takes advantage of local micro-climate characteristics in site planning and analysis of house construction. In a ten-year project, we built the Orchid House with the concept of a green core to effectively reduce the energy consumption of the house. We have equipped Orchid House with smart control for passive design using an Internet of Things (IoT) solution called HouseTalk. With HouseTalk, the passive mechanisms of Orchid House are intelligently controlled to offer indoor comforts. HouseTalk integrates all sensors and actuators of the Orchid House through a Graphical User Interface (GUI). This GUI allows the users to easily and directly access all IoT devices installed in the house through graphical icon representations, and conveniently implement smart algorithms for smart home. HouseTalk dynamically adjusts the formula for HVAC operation in the closed private living area, which is appropriate for thermal control. In the open public shared space (the green core of the Orchid House), HVAC will consume much more energy, and the passive design with non-thermodynamic cycle equipment such as mechanical ventilation, evaporative cooling system, or other non-thermodynamic cycle systems are more appropriate for thermal control. HouseTalk enhances passive design by using non-thermodynamic cycle system with low energy-consumption equipment to reduce the CO2 concentration, purifying the air to maintain oxygen concentrations ranging between 18% and 21%. Also, in the green core, HouseTalk can effectively improve the cooling effect by up to 77% without HVAC.The reported thermal sensation indicates that over 90% of tenants are satisfied by HouseTalk’s HVAC control. We demonstrate the potential of enhancing air quality through the photosynthesis by indoor plants. HouseTalk can effectively speed up the reduction of carbon dioxide concentrations by 53%. The oxygen concentration for the HouseTalk scenario ranges between 18% and 21%, which is always higher than that of the baseline scenario.
Highlights
Due to the effects of global climate change, buildings require special design to offer indoor comforts in terms of thermal comfort, lighting comfort and good air quality
Under the sponsorship of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSMC), the HouseTalk project further built an enhanced version of the Orchid House, known as TSMC National Chiao Tung University (NCTU) Energy Education Center (Fig. 1), in Hsinchu Science Park
The paper is organized as follows: Section II provides the related work; Section III describes the Orchid House architecture; Section IV proposes HouseTalk and its operations for thermal and air quality controls; Based on the HouseTalk Graphical User Interface (GUI), Sections V and VI develop the algorithms to evaluate the performance of HouseTalk in terms of air quality and thermal controls; Section VII describes a novel approach to count the number of people in a room through CO2 sensors and the AI algorithm; Section VIII uses Reported Thermal Sensation (RTS) to measure the tenant satisfaction on thermal control
Summary
Due to the effects of global climate change, buildings require special design to offer indoor comforts in terms of thermal comfort, lighting comfort and good air quality. To address this issue, we commenced a 10-year HouseTalk project to build the ‘‘Orchid House’’ with the passive design guideline, which takes advantage of the local micro-climate to maintain a comfortable temperature range in the house. Based on an IoT development platform called IoTtalk [2], [3], the HouseTalk project has provided smart control for the passive building design of the Orchid House. The paper is organized as follows: Section II provides the related work; Section III describes the Orchid House architecture; Section IV proposes HouseTalk and its operations for thermal and air quality controls; Based on the HouseTalk GUI, Sections V and VI develop the algorithms to evaluate the performance of HouseTalk in terms of air quality and thermal controls; Section VII describes a novel approach to count the number of people in a room through CO2 sensors and the AI algorithm; Section VIII uses Reported Thermal Sensation (RTS) to measure the tenant satisfaction on thermal control
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