02. Jul 2009 - The state of building technology research

Abstract

The EnOB research initiative’s two-day status seminar focussing on building technologies ended today in Würzburg, Germany. Research teams from a wide range of disciplines in the area of energy-optimised construction gave the over 170 participants an insight into current projects. At the same time, the event also had the aim of exploring and discussing future research topics in the field of energy-optimised construction. In terms of content, the spectrum ranged from innovative facade systems, HVAC concepts/applications and thermal storage systems right through to modelling and the optimisation of operations.

more details

Even though the steps taken by general building practice in the direction of energy efficiency have been rather cautious and modest so far, researchers have been working with sometimes very particular products and technologies for a number of years now. As part of this work, innovative building concepts, building materials, components and systems for new buildings and refurbishment have been tested under everyday conditions and the performance of same has been investigated in detail. The potential for achieving considerable energy savings has been demonstrated here numerous times.

It was evident at this event that buildings and building services technology will have to be treated and optimised as an overall system to a greater extent in the future. Instead of concentrating solely on further development of individual technologies, the net needs to be cast a little wider: building services technology needs to be considered together with the building envelope, and individual buildings need to be treated in terms of their interrelationships within the neighbourhood or residential estate. Alongside the goal of minimising the primary energy requirement, other goals such as high user comfort, ease of operation and economic feasibility need to be kept in mind too. The aim here is to select the most efficient technologies in each case and to combine these in a suitable manner.