The numerous buildings that currently require thermal rehabilitation in Romania means that substantial resources and a large number of competent people are required to carry out surveys and energy audits. However, commercial energy balance software is mostly unaffordable for those organisations involved in this process. This paper describes an energy balance programme – ENEFControl – developed to be a rapid, low cost, local tool able to assist in the choice of energy efficient solutions for buildings. To test the software, thermal and energy analyses were carried out on a 1970s built apartment block in Transylvania. Based on these analyses, three constructive scenarios were proposed for thermal rehabilitation. Compared to the performance of the analysed building, the thermal and energy performance of the retrofitted building in all three scenarios significantly improved. Since European Union accession in 2007, rapidly rising energy costs have affected the Romanian population. ENEFControl offers Romanian engineers and architects an opportunity to speed up the rehabilitation programme of buildings without the need for more expensive expertise and tools.

The aim of this master's thesis is to find out the possibility of building a passive house in the Ural region. To achieve this goal it was necessary to solve the following problems, the results are presented in the thesis: 1) to define the concept of "passive house"; 2) to identify the technologies used under the construction of energy efficient buildings; 3) to consider the alternative mounting options of low-rise buildings; 4) to establish the geographic and climatic conditions of the selected area; 5) to describe the socio-economic situation in the region; 6) to reveal the specifics of the Passive House in the Ural Federal District. It was found out that construction of a Passive House in compliance with all the relevant technologies and global standards of Passive Houses in the climatic conditions of the Ural region at this stage is difficult. The main reasons of that are the following: 1) The climatic conditions of the region require for increasing the insulation layer, development and application of new types of insulating materials with higher resistance to heat transfer. 2) The economic conditions of the region determine the choice in favor of budget accommodation rather than innovation. 3) The complexity of the design, the lack of professionals and practical experience in the construction of passive houses. Master's thesis contains 62 pp., 6 fig. 5 tab., 67 bibliographic references. Graphic part - 5 sheets. / Цель диссертации - определить возможность постройки пассивного дома в Уральском регионе. Для реализации поставленной цели необходимо было решить следующие задачи, результаты изложены в диссертации: 1) определить понятие "Пассивный дом"; 2) обозначить технологии, применяемые при строительстве энергоэффективных зданий; 3) рассмотреть альтернативные возможности монтажа малоэтажных строений; 4) установить географо-климатических условия выбранной территории; 5) описать социально-экономическую ситуацию заданного региона; 6) выявить специфику пассивного дома для Уральского федерального округа. Установлено, что постройка пассивного дома с соблюдением всех технологий и соответствующего общемировым стандартам пассивного дома на данном этапе в климатических условиях Уральского региона затруднительна. Основными причинами этого являются: 1) Климатические условия региона, требующие увеличения слоя изоляции, разработки и применения новых видов изолирующих материалов с большим сопротивлением теплопередаче. 2) Экономические условия региона, определяющие выбор в пользу бюджетного жилья, нежели инновационного. 3) Сложность конструкции, отсутствие специалистов и практического опыта строительства пассивных домов. Магистерская диссертация содержит 62 с., 5 табл., 6 рис., 67 библиограф. ссылок. Графическая часть – 5 л.

Магистерская диссертация состоит из введения, трех глав, заключения, списка литературы и приложения. В работе рассматривается концепция современных каркасных домов по финской технологии, которая пришла к нам с северных широт американского континента, где они являются самым распространенным вариантом частного жилья. В качестве ключевого доказательства выделяются конструкционные особенности «зеленых домов», которые характеризуются высокими теплоизоляционными качествами с доступной стоимостью и оптимальным сроком возведения. Описываются характерные особенности этапов строительства каркасных домов и уделяется внимание материалу, из которого собираются данные конструкции. Проведен макроэкономический анализ показателей Свердловской области и города Кушва, приведена характеристика города и анализ внешнеэкономического окружения. Предложен проект реализации инвестиционно-строительного проекта каркасного коттеджного поселка, позволяющий удовлетворить потребность жителей города в индивидуальном жилье. В заключении сформулированы основные выводы и результаты диссертационного исследования. / The master's thesis consists of an introduction, three chapters, a conclusion, a list of references and an Appendix. The paper discusses the concept of modern frame houses on the Finnish technology, which came to us from the Northern latitudes of the American continent, where they are the most common option of private housing. The key evidence is the structural features of "green houses", which are characterized by high thermal insulation qualities with affordable cost and optimal construction time. The characteristic features of the stages of construction of frame houses are described and attention is paid to the material from which these structures are collected. The macroeconomic analysis of indicators of the Sverdlovsk region and the city of Kushva is carried out, the characteristic of the city and the analysis of the external economic environment is given. The project of realization of investment and construction project of the frame cottage settlement allowing to satisfy need of inhabitants of the city in individual housing is offered. In conclusion, the main conclusions and results of the dissertation research are formulated.

No description available.

No description available.

The road to energy-efficient housing is not without cracks and potholes. Many building stakeholders have pointed to the discrepancies that exist between simulated and measured efficiency results, where some have called it a post-occupancy gap, others have called it an energy efficiency information gap. The research presented in this thesis addresses that gap by detailing the results of two exploratory case studies of affordable housing projects in Virginia across three manuscripts. The data utilized in the first manuscript includes measured data collected at the second level through the NEXI energy monitoring and feedback device, wherein we used descriptive statistics to investigate the impact of temperature on energy use over different timeframes. We had anticipated our findings may not all be consistent with previously existing studies. We found this to be true in many cases, but we also discovered interesting contradictions to our assumptions. This study thereby investigates the gap in energy performance within net-zero buildings and contributes to the existing body of literature by presenting the findings of this unique study. The data utilized in Manuscript 2 and Manuscript 3 was utility data, which was reported as end-of-use monthly consumption values. We were able to investigate the impact of 3 different HVAC systems energy use by evaluating the energy and cost performance before and after the installation of newer, more efficient systems. We found that although all systems were performing below anticipated standards, the one-stage system outperformed in terms of efficiency, and the second-stage system outperformed in terms of cost. The findings in these studies emphasize the importance of energy education for residents to achieve greater efficiency gains. / Master of Science / Humans are complex beings; hence the buildings they inhabit are complex systems. While breakthroughs in simulating, designing, and constructing high-performance buildings as well as advanced energy use technologies have been promising, many have fallen short of their ambitious goals primarily due to the complexity of building occupant behavior. Achieving energy efficiency requires thorough research before design and construction, the use of advanced technologies, and the incorporation of behavior-driven energy use dynamics. Furthermore, with the breadth of literature to support the delivery of individualized energy information in real-time to residents comes the opportunity to investigate further the impact of advanced technologies in high performing buildings that have fallen short of their optimistic design goals. This thesis consists of three manuscripts, which describe two exploratory case studies of high-performance residential homes in Virginia's affordable housing sector. The first manuscript, a journal paper, investigates the individual HVAC energy use of six senior residents, wherein we explore the interplay between temperature, energy use, and age across different timeframes. We find that, across different timeframes, energy use for senior citizens remains relatively consistent in high-performance homes. The second and third manuscripts are conference papers, which have been presented on and published in the respective conference proceedings. We quantitively investigated the energy performance of energy-efficient HVAC systems and compared predicted results and measured results. In conclusion, we hope to contribute to the body of literature, which investigates shortcomings in achieving energy-efficiency within high-performance homes.

Improving energy efficiency in buildings is essential for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, addressing climate change, and achieving cost savings while enhancing occupant comfort. This study examines the energy performance of Nordiska Folkhögskolan, a Swedish school building, before and after renovation, benefiting from Sweden's advanced energy-efficienttechnologies and supportive policies. Energy consumption data analysis reveals significant reductions in district heating and electricity usage post-renovation, attributed to enhancements in insulation, heating systems, and energy management. Notably, there is a consistent decline in energy consumption, particularly during winter months, emphasizing the effectiveness of holistic approaches to energy-efficient building design and highlighting the importance of targeted energy efficiency measures in reducing heat losses through the building envelope.  The successful mitigation of energy loss through enhanced insulation and ventilation systems underscores the necessity of comprehensive energy-efficient design strategies. Despite promising outcomes, variations in energy consumption patterns post-renovation require ongoing evaluation and supplementary measures. Recommendations include adopting advanced exterior wall designs, continuous energy monitoring, integrating renewable energy solutions, conducting educational outreach initiatives, and investing in energy-efficient infrastructure. These strategies collectively promote conservation and establish sustainable learning environments, contributing valuable insights into enhancing energy efficiency in school buildings globally.

Yes / The recent advancements in wireless sensor hardware ensures sensing multiple sensor data such as temperature, pressure, humidity, etc. using a single hardware unit, thus defining it as multi-sensor data communication in wireless sensor networks (WSNs). The in-processing technique of data aggregation is crucial in energy-efficient WSNs; however, with the requirement of end-to-end data confidentiality it may prove to be a challenge. End-to-end data confidentiality along with data aggregation is possible with the implementation of a special type of encryption scheme called privacy homomorphic (PH) encryption schemes. This paper proposes an optimized PH encryption scheme for WSN integrated networks handling multi-sensor data. The proposed scheme ensures light-weight payloads, significant energy and bandwidth consumption along with lower latencies. The performance analysis of the proposed scheme is presented in this paper with respect to the existing scheme. The working principle of the multi-sensor data framework is also presented in this paper along with the appropriate packet structures and process. It can be concluded that the scheme proves to decrease the payload size by 56.86% and spend an average energy of 8-18 mJ at the aggregator node for sensor nodes varying from 10-50 thereby ensuring scalability of the WSN unlike the existing scheme.

In this dissertation, we consider timeliness and energy optimization in battery-powered, mobile embedded real-time systems. We focus on real-time systems that operate in environments with dynamically uncertain properties, including context-dependent activity execution times and arbitrary activity arrival patterns. We consider an application model where activities are subject to time/utility function (or TUF) time constraints, mutual exclusion constraints on concurrent sharing of non-CPU resources, timeliness requirements including assurances on individual activity timeliness behavior, and system-level energy consumption requirements including a non-exhaustable energy budget. To account for uncertainties in activity properties in dynamic systems, we stochastically describe activity execution demands, and describe activity arrival behaviors using the unimodal arbitrary arrival model, which allows unbounded arrival frequencies. We consider the scheduling optimality criteria of: (1) probabilistically satisfying lower bounds on individual activities' maximal timeliness utilities, and (2) maximizing system-level energy efficiency, while ensuring that the system's energy consumption never exhausts the energy budget and resource mutual exclusion constraints are satisfied. For this multi-criteria scheduling problem, we present a DVS (dynamic voltage scaling)-based, real-time scheduling algorithm called the Energy-Bounded Utility Accrual Algorithm (or EBUA). Since the scheduling problem is NP-hard, EBUA heuristically (and dynamically) allocates CPU cycles to activities, computes activity schedules, and scales CPU voltage and frequency with a polynomial-time cost. If activities' cumulative execution demands exceed the available CPU time or may exhaust the system's energy budget, the algorithm defers and rejects jobs in a controlled fashion, minimizing system-level energy consumption and maximizing total accrued utility. We analytically establish several properties of EBUA. We prove that the algorithm never exhausts the specified energy budget. Further, we establish EBUA's timeliness optimality during under-loads, freedom from deadlocks, and correctness in mutually exclusive resource sharing. In particular, we prove that the algorithm's timeliness behavior subsumes the optimal timeliness behavior of deadline scheduling as a special case, and identify the conditions under which lower bounds on individual activity utilities are satisfied. In addition, we upper bound the time needed for mutually exclusively accessing shared resources under EBUA. We conduct experimental studies by simulating the algorithm on the DVS-enabled AMD k6 processor model, and by implementing it on QNX Neutrino 6.2.1 RTOS. Our experimental results validate our analytical results. Further, they confirm EBUA's superiority over other energy-efficient real-time scheduling algorithms on timeliness and energy consumption behaviors. / Ph. D.

Purpose: This study aims to see how the total active heating demand and the indoor climate for a school in Vasteras can improve from two different energysaving-investments. The two measures that will be investigated are windows with an improved U-value and an exchange of the ventilation unit with a heat exchanger. The result of the investments will be connected to a value-added study which investigates its impact on social, economy and environmental aspects. Method: To accomplish this, a literature study has been made to gather information to support the calculations and compare our results with previous studies. A case study which consists of calculations, a study visits to the school and a documentation analysis to strengthen the accuracy of the results. Results: The yearly total active heating for the school was 426 MWh with a heat demand of 191 kWh/m2 which is bad compared to equal buildings which normally use between 120-180 kWh/m 2. The exchange of the ventilation unit and the implement of a heat exchanger decreased the yearly active heating demand with 105 MWh which is equal to 144 kWh/m2. This is a much better value and now in the category of equal buildings. By investing in windows with a U-value of 1.3 W/m2 K from 3.0 W/m2 saved the building 29 MWh every year to 178 kWh/m2 which is just under the maximum value of 180 kWh/m 2 . Conclusions: Investing in a new ventilation unit with a heat exchanger showed to be the best investment for the school at this moment in time. The new heat exchanger contributes to a large energy saving and the investment cost had a payback time between 9 - 18 years depending on the kWh price. The study got similar results in the value-added study where the ventilation unit showed a greater impact on almost all of FN: s global goals. Windows did not show as impressive results as the ventilation unit did and is why it contributed less to the global goals in the value-added study.