Energy performance retrofits targeting national strategy development for typical Turkish school building

Abstract

Today, most existing buildings should be retrofitted to reduce the negative impact on the environment. According to the EPBD, Member States should prepare national action plans to increase nZEB. Therefore existing buildings must go under deep refurbishment. Educational facilities are a critical segment of the public sector, and a frequently used building type with high energy needs. In Turkey, more than 17 million students spend the majority of their time in school buildings, hence increasing energy efficiency in existing educational buildings not only contributes to the environment and can create healthy and comfortable indoor conditions for the students, but also creates an awareness of the youth and increases their learning performance. This study focuses on analyzing the effects of various retrofitting applications of the building envelope and HVAC systems on the energy performance of a school building to improve existing energy consumptions. Analysis of the building envelope is an important primary step towards achieving a low energy level, as other energy efficiency measures such as buildings' HVAC systems’ efficiencies. The aim is to reduce the heating and cooling demand of the selected building and to increase its energy performance. The analysis of the case study showed that there is no insulation layer on the outer wall as a result of the measurements. Therefore, the first step is to observe how the appropriate insulation layer affects the energy performance of the building. The methodology consists of energy modeling of the case study building in DesignBuilder and obtaining energy performance results by EnergyPlus software. Various retrofit scenarios were prepared into packages which include alternatives of thermal characteristics of the opaque elements such as external walls and roof, application of different glazing units, and implementation of solar control elements. These variables were combined and compared in terms of their effects on total primary energy consumption, heating and cooling demand. Based on the results, technical suggestions were given according to the best performing scenarios. It is expected that the research outcomes will contribute to the studies to improve the energy performance in educational buildings.