The importance of climate protection and sustainability is steadily increasing all over the world. However, there is a large potential for reducing emissions in the heating demand reduction and renewable heat supply of buildings that needs to be addressed. Therefore, a method was developed...

About 1000 solar thermal cooling systems have been installed worldwide, so experience with system sizing and design is limited. To counter the lack of experience and to evaluate the potential of energy and cost efficient solar cooling systems, a systematic system design study has been carried...

Low depth geothermal heat exchangers can be efficiently used as a heat sink for building energy produced during summer. If annual average ambient temperatures are low enough, direct cooling of a building is possible. Alternatively the heat exchangers can replace cooling towers in combination...

The best way to improve daylight performance is to take a closer look on the behaviour of lighting the interior of sample building spaces. Scale models are commonly used to assess daylighting performance of buildings using an artificial sky for purpose of research and teaching as well as...

For a large scale implementation of photovoltaics (PV) in the urban environment, building integration is a major issue. This includes installations on roof or facade surfaces with orientations that are not ideal for maximum energy production. To evaluate the performance of PV systems in urban...

Thermal energy collected from a PV-solar air heating system is being used to provide cooling for the Mataro Library, near Barcelona. The system is designed to utilise surplus heat available from the ventilated PV facade and PV shed elements during the summer season to provide building cooling. A...

One of the first rehabilitated passive energy standard office buildings in Europe was extensively monitored over two years to analyse the cooling performance of a ground heat exchanger and mechanical night ventilation together with the summer comfort in the building. To increase the storage mass...

Component performance and seasonal operational experiences have been analysed for desiccant cooling systems powered by solar air collectors. Measurements during the commissioning phase in Spain (public library) and in Germany (production hall) showed that the dehumidification efficiency of the...