Indoor climate and energy performance in nearly zero energy day care centers and school buildings

¹ Department of Civil Engineering, Aalto University, Finland
² Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia
³ Kouvola Innovation Oy, Finland
⁴ Sintef Building and Infrastructure, Architecture, Materials and Structures, Norway

^* Corresponding author e-mail: kaiser.ahmed@aalto.fi

Abstract

This study presents the assessment of actual indoor climate condition and energy performance in eight NZEB school and daycare centers of NERO H2020 project. Physical parameters such as indoor temperature, relative humidity, CO₂, airflow rate and temperature were measured during heating and cooling seasons, in parallel with an occupants’ questionnaires survey. Besides, calculated and measured energy data was collected from energy performance certificates and energy bills. Thermal comfort and IAQ were assessed based on categories in EN15251 standard with color footprints. Results showed that all the buildings had good or excellent indoor climate during the heating season. However, a large percentage of occupied hours were categorized as category IV during the cooling season, which mainly occurred due to too low indoor temperature caused by the low outdoor temperature during the measurement period. Also, all buildings achieved low CO₂ levels. Moreover, the conducted questionaries’ survey showed good correlation with measured results for all buildings except in one building, which had odor and noise problems. In contrast, the measured energy use in 5 buildings out of 7 was increased by factor 2.1-3.0 compared to calculated annual energy use due to a full-time operation of the ventilation system and presence of hot kitchens.