Influence of Adaptive Comfort Models on Energy Improvement for Housing in Cold Areas

Abstract

The evaluation of construction standards using adaptive thermal comfort models has a great impact on energy consumption. The analysis of a user’s climate adaptation must be one of the first steps in the search for nearly/net Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB). The goal of this work is to analyze the standards recommended by the Chile’s Construction with Sustainability Criteria for the building of housing, applying the ASHRAE 55-2017 and EN 15251:2007 adaptive comfort models in social housing. The study produces concrete recommendations associated with construction strategies, to increase the number of hours the user finds themselves with acceptable thermal comfort levels, without repercussions for energy consumption. Sixteen parametric series were evaluated with a dynamic simulation of the most common prototype of social housing in the Bio-Bio Region. The study shows that thermal comfort conditions can be increased through a combination of improvement measures compared to the ECCS standard (Construction Standards with Sustainability Criteria): 27.52% in the case of applying EN 15251:2007 and 24.04% in the case of ASHRAE 55-2017.