Solar Decathlon Design Challenge & Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design

Project:

The Building Energy Research Group (BERG) Team comprised Joshua Vasudevan, PhD Researcher (2020–2023);  Enea Dimitris Tseno, PhD Researcher (2022 – 2025); Syafiq Saiful, PhD Researcher (2021 – 2024); as well as  Neda Abbasimaleki, PhD Researcher (2021 – 2024) at Architecture Group and Kaspar Rechardt BSc (2019 – 2024) student at Architecture Group.   The team was awarded a £1,500 Engineers in Business prize for its innovation, Smart Climate Proof House (SCPH).

The BERG team proposed a smart, climate-proof, semidetached house design, with the focus of the design revolving around fuel poverty and well-being in order to provide a happy and sustainable home, which suits the current remote and hybrid working mode. The house achieves net zero in terms of energy and carbon and offers a suitable and comfortable environment for individuals who work from home. The target market for the house consists of any individual or housing developer who wants to contribute to the climate emergency by building a smart climate-proof house which helps not only to reduce the carbon emissions from the proposed site but also to directly reduce the carbon emissions from transportation and offices.

The proposed house incorporates the three core principles of net zero-carbon buildings, ie energy efficiency, low-carbon heating, and renewable energy. The design strategy follows a fabric-first approach to maximise the performance of the building envelope. Passive measures such as low embodied carbon materials, building orientation, natural ventilation, and enhanced envelope, as well as active measures such as heat pumps, solar PV, demand flexibility and thermal batteries, have been incorporated into the design. This strategy managed to decrease carbon emissions associated with the operating energy of the building, reduce embodied carbon, and improve indoor environmental quality.

 First prize winners pictured left to right: Kaspar Rechardt, Neda Abbasimaleki, Joshua Vasudevan, Syafiq Saiful, Enea Dimitris Tseno.

Project:

The team comprised Tom Crook, Mirza Baig and Girishkumar Gudnennavar – all MSc Students (2022-2023) in Low Energy Building Services Engineering.  The GMATH ASHRAE Team was awarded a £1,000 Engineers in Business prize for its innovation: Net Zero Multi-purpose Building

The innovation and purpose were to create a net zero energy building that both promotes comfort and acceptable indoor environmental quality. By using a combination of renewable energy sources, energy-efficient technologies and sustainable design principles, the design constitutes a paradigm of economically viable sustainable buildings. More specifically, the main features of our design include high-performance fabric, Solar PV, free cooling and heating, heat recovery from high-performance chillers, the electrification of energy, green roofs that use recycled water, thermal mass, and energy-efficient lighting and features. By combining parametric, sensitivity, and optimisation analyses, the team identified the most viable solutions for our climate and building.

Second prize winners left to right: Tom Crook, Mirza Baig, Girishkumar Gudnennavar.

Project:

Rodrigo Gonzalez Morra, MSc Student; Lohit Inturi, Jaikumar Durai, Arun Baby Thomas and Vishnu Koram Parambil – MSc Students (2022-2023) in Low Energy Building Services Engineering.  The team won a £500 Engineers in Business prize for its innovation Zero Energy Building for Hot Climates.

Following a thorough sensitivity analysis of the building in IES, it was discovered that the building envelope insulation (external wall U-value) was the largest energy driver for heat transfer through the envelope, followed by the floor. The simulations showed that although the percentage of glazing and heat transfer of glazing are known to be significant energy drivers in building heat transfer investigations, it was shown that the envelope was less sensitive to these variables. Using the limits set by the parametric analysis, the external wall and floor U-values were set to the upper bounds, exceeding ASHRAE specifications, to reduce heat transfer through the envelope, due to the low sensitivity of the glazing variables, these were set to the minimum standards of ASHRAE. A climate analysis of the region identified solar photovoltaics to be a viable option for the building to offset its energy consumption.

A Python model was built to simulate the solar radiation received by the building from the EnergyPlus weather file, this model is designed to optimise the azimuth and slope angle of photovoltaic panels, the model also includes provision for energy generation variations with panel temperatures. Combining these two digital modelling techniques, led to an improved building envelope strategy, reducing energy use intensity (EUI) by 20% and the inclusion of an optimised photovoltaic installation on the roof, helping to offset 40% of the total annual energy use.

Third prize winners left to right: Rodrigo Gonzalez Morra, Vishnu Koram Parambil, Jaikumar Durai, Arun Baby Thomas, Lohit Inturi.