An energetic analysis of a multifunctional façade system for energy efficient retrofitting of residential buildings in cold climates of Finland and Russia
Introduction
In view of climate change, aging housing stocks and heavy energy consumption, it is important to promote integrated retrofit of residential areas, and to understand the importance of efficient modernization, deployment of new technology and use of renewable energy resources (Raslanas, Alchimovienė, & Banaitienė, 2011). Energy retrofit of buildings represents an important sector for mobilizing investments to address carbon mitigation of cities (Mastrucci, Baume, Stazi, & Leopold, 2014). For developed countries, such as EU-15, the technical greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction potential for the building stock in 2020 ranges between 21 and 54% of the national baseline. For economies in transition, such as Russia, this value ranges between 26 and 47% of the national baseline, for the building stock in 2030 (Ürge-Vorsatz & Novikova, 2008). For both markets, building envelop retrofits, including insulation, are estimated as measures with the largest potential. The integration of new technologies for renewable-based energy production, into building envelop retrofitting measures, can significantly reduce GHG emissions.
Most national building regulations that mandate thermal insulation of building envelopes were introduced after the 1970s following the energy crisis (Balaras, Droutsa, Dascalaki, & Kontoyiannidis, 2005). In addition, compared to current regulations the first thermal insulation requirements were quite moderate. So, the energy saving potential is the largest in the oldest non-retrofitted buildings.
About 60% of Russia's total multi-family apartment buildings are in need of extensive capital repair, rising to 93–95% in those apartment blocks with an average age of less than 25 years (IFC & EBRD, 2012). The need for renovation and modernization of housing properties in Finland mainly concerns apartment buildings built in 1960s and 1970s (Lindstedt, Kärki, Palmu, & Junnonen, 2011). A major issue in renovation projects is to minimize living interferences and the duration of renovation works cost-effectively.
There is an urgent need for development of efficient and low cost (prefabricated) solutions that are modular, customizable, prefabricated and industrially marketable. These will allow systemic retrofitting that can easily be applied in buildings and affordably maintained with minimum disturbances to end-users (Meno, Chica, Tapia, & Del Portillo, 2012). Industrialization does not necessarily imply the use of new materials, but new forms of application or combination of materials, and manufacturing construction components in facilities outside the place of the final assembly.
This paper introduces a multifunctional energy efficient façade system for multi-family apartment building retrofitting under development in a EC FP7 project Meefs: Multifunctional Energy Efficient Facade System for Building Retrofitting hereafter referred as the “Meefs” system. The Meefs system is still in the concept phase. We analyze the energetic aspect of the system to energy renovations in cold climate apartment buildings, classified by a building typology, and could it improve energy efficiency in these buildings. The analyses are based on case studies in two cold climate locations, namely Helsinki, Finland and Moscow, Russia. We also estimate the potential use of the solution as a part of holistic district renovations relevant in Russia.
Section snippets
Literature review
There are many aspects relevant to the scope of this paper. These include the climatic indicators used in energy calculations, methods to classify existing apartment buildings stock, and potentials and solutions for improving its energy-efficiency especially by means of façade retrofitting. This section will briefly review relevant information, on these themes, available on literature, to provide support and background for the further analysis.
The most widely used general climate classification
The multifunctional energy efficient façade system for building retrofitting (the Meefs system)
Fig. 1 shows the core idea of the Meefs system, i.e. it is an energy efficient non-intrusive façade concept based on multi-module technology components that will allow integrating both active and passive technologies in the façade. The retrofitting facade will be based on a combination of advanced active solutions with efficient passive design and materials as well as efficient energy management system. Every module will represent different energy efficient innovative solutions, and packaged
Building typologies applied
It is of vital importance to analyze which kinds of buildings and façade configurations exist in the targeted market areas. These form the bases on which the product development leans. In the following, we describe the properties of typical apartment buildings in Finland and Russia based on literature.
Energetic assessment of the Meefs system
For Helsinki, the energy load calculations were made during the initial stages of the Meefs project to allow the development planning. In this paper additional energy consumption analysis were made for easier comparison between Helsinki and Moscow, and for conclusions. For Moscow, the authors utilized the energy consumption results by Paiho et al. (2013) with complementary calculations. The energy consumptions of the buildings were calculated with WinEtana, which is a building energy analysis
Discussion and conclusions
This study focused on the building typological and energetic issues of the multifunctional façade systems in two Northern locations, namely Helsinki and Moscow. There are also other important aspects, such as mechanical resistance and stability, safety in case of fire and in use, hygiene, health and local requirements, as well as legal issues which were not considered. The analysis, for the cold climates, of the structural design and applied system materials will be the focus of another study.
Acknowledgements
The results of this study are based on work done in two projects: (1) the ModernMoscow project funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland. (2) MEEFS project (www.meefsretrofitting.eu) co-financed by the European Commission in 7th FP, NMP2-LA-2011-285411” and developed together with the following partners: Acciona Infrastructures, Tecnalia, AST ingenieria, Gobierno de Extremadura (Spain), E&L Architects, Greenovate Europe, CQFD Composites, TBC générateurs d’innovation, Antworks,
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