Abstract
Most of the school buildings in Italy are high energy-demanding buildings with no ad-hoc ventilation systems (i.e., naturally-ventilated buildings). Therefore, reducing the heat losses of schools represent the main aspect to be dealt with. Nonetheless, the indoor air quality of the building should be simultaneously considered. Indeed, to date, energy consumptions and air quality are considered as incompatible aspects especially in naturally-ventilated buildings. The aim of the present paper is to evaluate the effect of different ventilation and airing strategies on both indoor air quality and energy consumptions in high energy-demanding naturally-ventilated classrooms. To this purpose, an Italian test-classroom, characterized in terms of air permeability and thermophysical parameters of the envelope, was investigated by means of experimental analyses and simulations through CO2 mass balance equation during the heating season. The air quality was assessed in terms of indoor CO2 concentrations whereas the energy consumptions were evaluated through the asset rating approach. Results clearly report that not adequate indoor CO2 concentrations are measured in the classroom for free-running ventilation scenarios even in low densely populated conditions (2.2 m2 person−1), whereas scheduled airing procedures can reduce the indoor CO2 levels at the cost of higher energy need for ventilation. In particular, when airing periods leading to the air exchange rate required by standards are adopted, the CO2 concentration can decrease to values lower than 1000 ppm, but the ventilation losses increase up to 36% of the overall energy need for space heating of the classroom. On the contrary, when the same air exchange rate is applied through mechanical ventilation systems equipped with heat recovery units, the ventilation energy loss contribution decreases to 5% and the overall energy saving results higher than 30%. Such energy-saving was found even higher for occupancy scenarios characterized by more densely populated conditions of the classroom typically occurring in Italian classrooms.
Highlights
Indoor air quality and energy saving of existing buildings are often considered as incompatible goals [1,2]
Indoor CO2 concentrations during free-running ventilation tests, scheduled manual airing tests, manual airing and mechanical ventilation with an air exchange rate imposed by the standard (EN 15251) were evaluated through experimental analyses or simulations applying a CO2 mass balance equation
During free-running ventilation tests, i.e., when the occupants adopted manual airing on the basis of their air quality perception, the estimated air exchange rates resulted lower than 1 h−1 (0.43–0.88 h−1 ), leading to reduced ventilation heat losses (8–15% of the total energy need) but high median CO2 concentrations
Summary
Indoor air quality and energy saving of existing buildings are often considered as incompatible goals [1,2]. Retrofit solutions that could improve the air quality, i.e., ventilation retrofit to increase the air exchange rate of indoor environments, are less frequently adopted as they are often considered as energy-consuming methods. This is mainly due to the inaccurate approach often adopted to compare different solutions (e.g., pre-/post-retrofit) not considering the same indoor air quality targets
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