Measured and Calculated Energy Saving on Ventilation of a Residential Building equipped with Ground-Air Heat Exchanger

Abstract

The significant share of energy consumption of the building sector in the total energy consumption makes it responsible for 36% of CO2 emission in the European Union. In the last decade a key objective of the EU is to improve the energy efficiency and increase the use of renewables in buildings. Ground-to-air heat exchangers can be a solution for reducing primary energy consumption from nonrenewable sources in buildings and contribute to the share of energy from renewable sources. The research in this paper deals with investigations on a ground to air heat exchanger of a pilot energy efficient building, constructed in west side of Romania. The study presents the assessment of the heating and cooling energy potential of the ground-to-air heat exchanger serving the energy efficient building. Three full years of measurements of the air temperature entering the ground-air heat exchanger and the outlet air temperature are available and were used in the study. A comparison is made between the energy potential determined based on temperature measurements and the energy potential based on calculated outlet temperatures using a computational model and conventional climate data for the building location.