Energy saving and environmental resources potentials: Toward new methods of building design

With the current issues concerning the management of finite energy resources and the potential savings in the building sector, reducing building energy consumption is a key point. Up to now, efforts have been focused on insulation to separate the inner ambiance from the fluctuation of the outside air temperature. Assuming that insulating a building might not be the best solution to exploit the free renewable sources of its environment (outside air temperature, sky temperature, solar radiation), a first identification step has been carried out to determine which sources should be exploited. Building energy simulations have been carried out, including several insulation levels and climatic conditions. Then, indicators have been defined in order to quantify the ability of the previous sources to cover the energy needs and the possibility for the building to exploit them. Finally, the previous indicators have been applied to the different configurations of buildings. The study shows that whatever the climate or the insulation level is, some resources such as the sun and the sky are not enough exploited, although some could entirely cover the building needs at each time step (case of the sky). When it is not possible, the paper proposes a method to evaluate the remaining needs and the sizing of a supplementary heating/cooling system. ► A method of building design using potential and performance indicators is proposed. ► The potential indicators express the capacity of the environmental energy resources. ► The performance indicators evaluate the exploitation of the resources by a building. ► Almost all resources have high potentials but low exploitation rates. ► A method for sizing the heating and cooling system is presented.