Evaluation on classroom thermal comfort and energy performance of passive school building by optimizing HVAC control systems

Decreasing the building energy consumption and improving thermal comfort through optimization of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) control systems are becoming increasingly significant due to global energy crisis, carbon emission and requirement of high life quality for people. Therefore, evaluation on building energy efficiency and human thermal comfort is extremely necessary. In the present work, energy conservation performance of one passive school building and classroom thermal comfort enhancement will be simultaneously investigated. Energy performance of single reference classroom under six design points and whole school building with two scenarios have been numerically investigated concerning the effects of different indoor set-point temperatures, pre-ventilation, sunshading system, and the efficiency of the heat recovery facility. Numerical results demonstrate that heating and cooling demands heavily depend on indoor set-point temperature, occupancy and heat recovery rate. Building energy performance analysis illuminates that the optimized control systems for HVAC and sun-shading systems show an expectedly energy efficient performance. In addition, classroom thermal comfort indicated by the recommended thermal range and comfort zone has been numerically and experimentally presented. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.