Temperature, Relative Humidity, and Carbon-Dioxide Modulation in a Near-Zero Energy Efficient Retrofit House

摘要

The concept of Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) has reached a phase where countries all around the world are encouraging its implementation into mainstream construction. In the United States, both private and public sector buildings are incorporating energy efficient technologies to reduce their environmental impact, while increasing the productivity and comfort of its occupants. A Net Zero Energy Building (NZEB) performs as expected only when the building's envelope, HVAC and other mechanical/electrical systems work in unison. Subsequently, once these buildings are occupied, the behavior of its occupants significantly influences the buildings energy performance. The authors have captured the modulation of temperature, relative humidity, and carbon-dioxide within a home retrofit to near Net Zero Energy Building conditions during the heating season. This house is a Deep-Energy Retrofit Home completed as a marketing and demonstration home for a joint neighborhood stabilization project and U.S. Department of Energy funded community-wide retrofit grant program. The house includes an internet based real-time home energy monitoring system, which facilitates reviewing the changes in the houses energy consumption as a consequence of fluctuating internal temperature settings and external climate conditions. Post retrofit blower-door test result conform that the house has been made fairly air-tight during the retrofit. Hence ventilation of the house is achieved via an Energy Recovery Ventilator (ERV) with multiple stages of operation. To this end, the paper is an exploratory examination of the inter-relationships between occupancy, interior temperature, relative humidity, carbon-dioxide levels and energy consumption within a Near-Zero Energy Building.