The aim of this bachelor thesis was to study the potential of hemp buildings in different climates. The report examines and models two different energy efficient building concepts – the more common passive house and the environmental friendly hempcrete building system. These two buildings thermal performances were then simulated and compared in different climates followed by a brief discussion about their economic and environmental impact. The simulation was performed with the energy calculating program VIP-energy v 2.1.1 with the two models located in Kiruna, Sundsvall, Malmo, Berlin and Rome to represent the different climates. Simulations for different wall sizes and a sensitivity analysis of some significant parameters were also made. The hempcrete building system showed to have a thermal performance similar to that of passive houses in more southern climates. In the north of Sweden however the hempcrete building required up to 20 % more energy than the passive house to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures. This deficit could be compensated for with hemp fibre insulation to augment the building envelope and U-value. Furthermore the hygrothermal material properties that were not included in the simulation can be expected to have a significant positive impact on hemp buildings relative thermal performance. With a passive house thermal performance, a healthy indoor environment and an economically viable and environmental friendly production process hemp building demonstrated great potential in all the fields studied.

Reduction of carbon emissions is understood to be vital to help mitigate catastrophic climate change. In Europe, 40% of energy use is attributed to the built environment (European Commission, 2010), with a large proportion of this from dwellings. In line other legislation for decarbonisation under the Climate Change Act of 2008, the UK Government has agreed that all new housing will be ‘zero carbon’ from 2016 onwards. From a technical aspect this task is feasible using improved insulation performance, more airtight building techniques, efficient servicing, and renewable energy technologies. In practice however, post-occupancy evaluation studies highlight a discrepancy between design energy use and measured energy performance, with a tendency for real buildings to use more energy than designed and for projects regarded as ‘low energy’ in design to use an equivalent amount of energy as a pre-existing counterpart (Bordass, 2001; Branco, Lachal, Gallinelli, & Weber, 2004; Gill, Tierney, Pegg, & Allan, 2011). This difference between design and use - ‘the design gap’ - is attributed to both the physical ‘hard’ features of the building (form, area, systems) and occupant-driven or ‘soft’ features (ventilation & heating preferences) by a number of studies (Guerra Santin, Itard, & Visscher, 2009; Socolow, 1978). This body of work begins with a review of the field and state of the art - occupant influence on energy use in a domestic environment. The first contribution to knowledge is in the adapted utilisation of a piece of software by Richardson et al. which stochastically generated electricity use profiles for homes which are shown to be similar to measured energy usage, both in net energy use and in load profiles (Richardson, Thomson, & Infield, 2008). This adapted software was implemented to generate appliance use profiles for a number of dwelling models. These results are then interrogated and a regression model proposed based on a number of dependent variables identified in the input profiles. The theory of planned behaviour is used to underpin a survey in which a number of households are asked to comment on their attitude and behaviour with regards to energy use in the home – the homes in this case being new-build Passivhaus council-housing in Devon. The results of this project form the second aspect of this work’s contribution to knowledge.

This diploma thesis deals with design of house for living of two generations. The house is designed with the form of wooden frame structure with the extensive green roof system. In the first part, the thesis is focused to issues of energy efficiency and passive house standard of living. In the next part is described topic of the green roof. In the practical part is described selection of structural system, design of composition structures including requirement for implementation of construction works. Furthermore is performed thermal technical assessment of composition structures and calculation of energy balance according to PHPP. In the end is a brief description of static design of ceiling structure. The drawing part includes project and manufacturing documentation including solutions of important construction details.

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As part of the EU project Energy Efficient Demo Multiresidential highrise Building (EE-highrise), this thesis work evaluates and changes the Slovenian Eco Silver House (ESH) high rise building model in order to see if it can be classifiable as a passive house in different European regions. The purpose of this thesis work was to evaluate if the ESH could meet the European and Swedish passive house classification in Sibernik, Ljubljana, Lund, Östersund, Sundsvall and Kiruna. The purpose was also to make a sensitivity analysis of different energy efficiency measures in the energy performance of the building. This analysis was conducted to understand which of the selected energy efficiency measures made the most significant improvements in the results. The measures included in the sensitivity analysis were the building envelopes wall insulation thickness, changing the window frames, altering the ventilation air duct length and width as well as increasing the air duct insulation thickness. Finally, simulations with solar panels on the roof of the ESH were carried out. For the European passive house classification, the study involved constructing the model in the Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) and simulating each region and energy efficiency measures separately. PHPP is however made specifically for verifying buildings according to the European passive house standard. So the demands for the Swedish passive house classification cannot be calculated in the PHPP simulations. Because of this, the data available through PHPP was used to manually calculate the Swedish passive house requirements. The results showed that the original ESH model, was only passive house certifiable according to the European classification in Sibernik. When including the additional energy efficiency measures it was possible for the ESH to become passive house certifiable in Lund, Ljubljana and Sibernik. The Swedish passive house classification results suggests that the ESH may be passive house certifiable in Lund. Also, with additional energy efficiency measures the ESH may meet the passive house requirements in Sundsvall and Kiruna. However, all the passive house classification parameters could not be considered in this study. Accordingly, additional analysis are required to draw final conclusions on whether the ESH building could meet the Swedish passive house certification in the different Swedish climate zones. The conclusions drawn were that all the energy efficiency measures contribute to reducing the primary energy demand, heating demand and the heating load. However, these same energy efficiency measures would at the same time increase the cooling demand. Because of this, it was discussed that specific regional models should be made. Because some regional models might benefit from not including the energy efficiency measures used in this thesis at all. They might instead benefit from finding and implementing energy efficiency measures that reduce the cooling demand.

This thesis is part of the major EU project EE-Highrise. The main objective of the EU project is to investigate high-rise buildings in different climates considering energy use, sustainability and cultural and economic differences in different countries. A demo high-rise building has been built in the capital of Slovenia. The purpose of this thesis was to build a model of the demo building in the simulation program IDA Indoor Climate and Environment. The model’s energy performance was then to be simulated in three different regions: Scandinavia, Central Europe and in the Mediterranean. Improvements to the climate shell and the ventilation system were to be examined and the results were then to be compared to European and Swedish Passive House certification schemes. A model was built in the simulation program IDA Indoor Climate and Environment according to the provided drawings of the demo building in Slovenia. Most of the building’s parameters were provided by the project group in Slovenia. When specific parameters were missing or difficult to motivate, standardized values were assumed. The model was modified into five cases: the base case, increased insulation of the external walls, improved glazing and frames for the windows, increased effective heat recovery efficiency and a combination of the energy saving measures. The model’s energy performance was then simulated at five different locations: Naples in Italy, Ljubljana in Slovenia, Malmo in southern Sweden, Karlstad in the middle of Sweden and Kiruna in the northern Sweden. When comparing the results to the requirements for the European Passive House certification, none of the investigated cases met the requirements due to a too large primary energy demand. However, if the requirement regarding the primary energy demand were to be disregarded, then the building in Slovenia would pass the requirements with an increased effective heat recovery efficiency for the ventilation system. Also the building in southern Sweden would pass the requirements with a combination of increased insulation for the external walls, improved windows and increased effective heat recovery efficiency. The Swedish Passive House certification would be fulfilled for the models in Malmo and Karlstad with an increased effective heat recovery efficiency, while the model in Kiruna did not pass the requirements. However, with a combination of the energy saving measures the model in Kiruna came very close to meeting the requirements.   The conclusion was that an increased effective heat recovery efficiency had the largest impact on the building’s space heating demand and that improving the windows increased the cooling demand in Naples by a large amount.

This study demonstrates how the density of a neighbourhood affects its energy demand, metabolism (energy and material flows) and its ability to produce its own energy. Single-family detached houses and row townhouses were each modeled using passive solar housing guidelines with the DesignBuilder building energy simulation software. Energy demand is then modeled within neighbourhoods at two densities based on south facing windows fully un-shaded at 9:00 am, and 12:00 pm solar time on Dec. 21. The neighbourhood metabolisms were then calculated based on location and density. The potential energy supply was evaluated from the spatial characteristics of the neighbourhood (for solar) and the metabolism (municipal solid waste and wastewater flows.) The potential energy demand and supply are then compared for the varying building types and densities to determine the sensitivity of the energy supply and demand relationships.

This study demonstrates how the density of a neighbourhood affects its energy demand, metabolism (energy and material flows) and its ability to produce its own energy. Single-family detached houses and row townhouses were each modeled using passive solar housing guidelines with the DesignBuilder building energy simulation software. Energy demand is then modeled within neighbourhoods at two densities based on south facing windows fully un-shaded at 9:00 am, and 12:00 pm solar time on Dec. 21. The neighbourhood metabolisms were then calculated based on location and density. The potential energy supply was evaluated from the spatial characteristics of the neighbourhood (for solar) and the metabolism (municipal solid waste and wastewater flows.) The potential energy demand and supply are then compared for the varying building types and densities to determine the sensitivity of the energy supply and demand relationships.

In the present time, when prices of energy go up continually, we can hear more and more about the topic of energy-cutting. Important role in this sphere performs low-energy development. Passive houses, which are specific type of low energy houses, cut heat demand significantly. It means marked improvement with the view of energy saving, protection of the environment, but also quality of living. There is no doubt that these constructions bring numerous advantages, as evidenced by ever-growing number of passive houses abroad. Nevertheless, in the Czech Republic are very little passive houses. Partial intention of the thesis work is to highlight the importance of certification, which is able to contribute toward expansion of passive houses. The outcome of this part is proposal of the criteria for certification of passive houses in the Czech Republic. Principal aim of my diploma work is to compare passive house to common house in light of capital expenditures and operating costs and information about pay-off period of investment in low-energy buildings. Just matter of economic return is the most important criterion in decision making about construction of house or building.

About 25 % of the total buildings in the European Union have been categorized as ”old buildings”. Followed the recent strickt rules for carbon emissions reduction, each house has to approximetely cut 20 % of CO2 by 2020. Countries like England, have taken the issue very seriously and planning to reduce the carbon emissions by 30 % until the end of 2020 and by an extra 80 % by 2050 (Francis Moran, 2014). The aim of the report is to present how a traditional house can be retroffited into a passive house and also to identify the key points that every passive house should have. For the purpose of the project an avtual house, based in Gävle, was provided and all the simulations are based on actual data. The initial design of the house which was used for the simulation and the 3D design, was provided by the house owner. The building was built in 1953, information regarding the current insulation of the house was provided by the owner as well. For the simulations and the 3D design a software know as IDA ICE was used, license and access to the software were given by the University of Gävle. The report simulates the current house and compares the results with two possible scenarios that are reducing the energy demand of the house. Furthermore, the possible ways and tools that could be used to reduce the energy demand of the house and cost estimation for the retrofitting is available in the paper.The first simulations were occured on the actual house, the first retrofitting package introduces new simulations based on new insulation materials, like wood and cement, that are placed mainly on the roof and on the outer walls. Also, the thickness have changed, thus the new insulations are thicker.Moreover, the second and final retrofitting package, introduces an HVAC system, which is a standard system. The aim is to achieve further energy demand reductions and prove that simple and basic changes can improve the quality of living and reduce CO2 emissions.After the completition of the first analysis, a reduction equal to 60 % and after the addition of the HVAC a further 20 % reduction achieved.