Climate adaptive thermal characteristics of envelope of residential passive house in China

Abstract

Passive house has been constructed in China on a large-scale over the past couple years for its great energy saving potential. However, research indicates that there is a significant discrepancy in energy performance for heating and cooling between passive houses in different climate zones. Therefore, this research develops a comparative analysis on the energy saving potential of passive houses with the conventional around China. A sensitivity analysis of thermal characteristics of building envelope (insulation of exterior walls and windows, and airtightness) on energy consumption is further carried out to improve the climate adaptability of passive house. Moreover, the variation of energy consumption under different heat gain intensity is also compared, to evaluate the effects of envelope thermal characteristics comprehensively. Results suggest that the decrease of exterior wall insulation leads to the greatest increase in energy consumption, especially in severe cold zone in China. However, the optimal insulation may change with the internal heat gain intensity, for instance, the decrease of insulation (from 0.4 to 1.0 W/(m²·K)) could reduce the energy consumption by 4.65 kW·h/(m²·a) when the heat gain increases to 20 W/m² for buildings in Hot Summer and Cold Winter zone in China.

Keywords

passive house / envelope thermal characteristics / climate adaptability / heating and cooling energy consumption

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