The potential of lightweight low-energy houses with hybrid adaptable thermal storage: Comparing the performance of promising concepts

The international community set clear goals regarding the reduction of CO2 emissions and energy demand in the built environment. This drives research and building practice to search for solutions and new building concepts that contribute to achieving these goals. The work presented in this paper should be seen in that context. This research focuses on a building concept that makes use of the thermal energy storage capacity of materials and buildings. The concept combines the thermophysical benefits of low and high thermal mass buildings by adapting (on demand) to the most optimal thermal capacity. The main objective of this research is to identify if this so-called hybrid adaptable thermal energy storage (HATS) approach shows potential to reduce the energy demand of new lightweight residential buildings in the Netherlands and maintain or improve thermal comfort. This paper gives an overview of various HATS concepts and discusses the predicted performance of three HATS concepts. This research shows that the HATS approach is able to reduce the heating energy demand compared to a lightweight and heavyweight reference case. Furthermore, it shows that the HATS approach is able to improving thermal comfort compared to the lightweight reference case and maintain thermal comfort compared to the heavyweight reference case. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.