Energy efficiency for airtightness and exteriorwall insulation of passive houses in hot summer and cold winter zone of China

Abstract

There exists huge differences in climatic conditions and occupant energy-consumingbehavior between Berlin and the "hot summer and cold winter zone of China" (HSCW), whichimplies that the building energy consumption compositions of two regions are completely different.In this paper, dynamic energy consumption simulation for passive houses with Design Buildersoftware was performed. The results indicated that the improvement of building airtightness andexterior wall insulation can reduce annual heating and cooling load effectively, and more importantlythe effect is much stronger on heating load than cooling load. Because of this, the paper proposed thatthe ratio of heating and cooling electricity consumption (r) should be adopted as an important indexin energy efficiency evaluation of passive houses. It would contribute to the reasonable selection ofventilation modes and the exterior wall heat transfer coefficient, and benefit the healthy developmentof passive houses in HSCW.