CII-Godrej GBC 9

Green Business Directory Green Buildings

B
uildings as they are designed and
used today, symbolise unrestrained
consumption of energy and other natural
resources with its consequent negative
environmental impact. In India, the
residential and commercial sector
consumes 25% of the total electricity
usage of the country and a major portion
of this is utilised in buildings. Designing &
developing new buildings based on sound
concepts of sustainability and applying
suitable retrofit options to existing
buildings could substantially improve the
energy use efficiency in the building sector
with an associated reduction in both local
as well as global emissions. An integrated
approach to building design involves
judicious use and application of:
Efficient materials and construction
practices
Bio-climatic/solar passive architectural
principles
Efficient systems and equipment
Renewable sources of energy
Efficient waste and water management
practices
Incorporating the above features in a
holistic manner would result in buildings
that would impose a minimal impact on
the environment while enhancing user
comfort and productivity.
About the author: Mili Majumdar,
B.Arch, M.Tech (IIT, Chennai), architect
wi th speci al i sati on i n bui l di ng
tech-nologies and development of
sustai nabl e habi tats has been
working in the field of energy efficiency
in buildings for the past 10 years.
She has been involved in design,
detailing and execution of energy
efficient buildings, design of energy
efficient lighting schemes for new and
existing buildings. She also has
experience in integration of energy
effi ci ent and renewabl e energy
technologies into building design.
She is proficient in simulation of
building envelope using Doe 2.1e,
SUNCODE-PC, TSBI3, Lumen micro
2000 etc. She is adept in use of various
lighting design/retrofit tools which help
in designing of efficient lighting
schemes, integrate natural lighting and
control strategies into lighting design,
and in retrofitting of existing schemes
with more efficient ones.
She has l ectured at vari ous
workshops, seminars and conferences
rel ated to energy effi ci ent and
sustainable architecture and building
systems.
Mili Majumdar
Fellow, The Energy and
Resources Institute,
Habitat Place, Lodhi Road,
New Delhi 110 003
Energy is used in various forms in a
building e.g electrical energy is used to
power various appliances and equipment
and thermal energy is used for cooking.
Typically electricity accounts for the major
share in a buildings energy consumption.
The primary end uses in a building that
use electricity are air conditioning
equipment, lights, fans, and office/
household appliances or machines. In a
typical unconditioned building in India,
lighting accounts for maximum energy
consumption, and in an air-conditioned
building, 40-50% of the total electricity
consumption is accounted for by HVAC
system, followed by lighting system
(20%). Other loads (pumps, equipment,
etc.) contribute to balance 20 - 30%.
An unconditioned green building
would be designed to maximise thermal
comfort and avoid use of air-conditioners/
air-coolers/heaters for maximum part of
the year. It would also have appropriate
daylighting to reduce lighting energy
consumption. This is done through
judicious use of passive solar principles
conducive to the climate in which the
building is located e.g. in TERI-Bangalore
office building located in moderate climate
of Bangalore, south facing dark coloured
solar chimneys create draft for exit of hot
air, in turn drawing in cool air from the open
Energy efficiency in green buildings - An integrated approach
to building design
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Green Buildings Green Business Directory
The thermal storage capacity of the
earth being high, the daily and annual
temperature fluctuations keep
decreasing with increasing depth of
the earth. At a depth of about 4m below
the ground the temperature remains
constant round the year and is equal
to the annual average temperature of
a place. For instance in Delhi this
temperature is between 25-26 C.
The principle of the tunnel is to take
advantage of constancy in temperature
throughout the year at a certain depth below
ground. So if air is passed through such
earth before funneling it to a room, we can
expect it to be cool in the summer and
warm in the winter. An earth air tunnel is a
system in which air is forced through
underground pipes or tunnels and then
circulated in the room. This system has
been used to precool the fresh air input to
windows on north, ensuring adequate air
flow at body level to provide thermal
comfort. Thermal performance of solar
passive buildings varies with changing
outdoor conditions and in largely
dependent on weather conditions.
On the other hand, air-conditioned
green buildings with maintained uniform
thermal conditions round the year are
designed to minimise load on conventional
HVAC system. This is done by adopting
appropriate passive solar design strategies
e.g. orientation, fenestration sizing and
shading, landscaping, day-lighting; and by
using appropriate building materials and
finishes, e.g. thermal insulation, insulating
glass units, heat reflecting paints, etc.
A recently concluded study by TERI has
shown that for an institutional designed in
a composite climate, the cooling load could
be reduced by 40% from the initial
estimated load (fig 1). The measures
which resulted in this load reduction, were:
Use of over deck roof insulation using
expanded polystyrene slabs/spray
applied polyurethane foam topped by
reflective broken china mosaic flooring.
Use of double glazed windows with
spectrally selective coating.
Use of cavity wall construction with
insulation infill.
Use of energy efficient lighting.
Use of underground earth air tunnel
(EAT) to supply pre-cooled air to the air
handling units.
Fig 1: Reduction in cooling load for an institutional building by
incorporation of energy efficiency measures
Base load as
per initial
estimate
Roof insulation
using EPS
Roof insulation
+ efficient
windows
Wall and roof
insulation +
efficient
windows
Puf insulation
on roof
(rest same
as in run 4)
Efficient
lighting with
all measures
EAT for
precooling
Energy saving options
for building envelope
Tons of refrigeration (TR) % savings
120.0
99.0
87.1
82.0
18
27
32 32
81.5
35
78.4
72.1
40
CII-Godrej GBC 11
Green Business Directory Green Buildings
the air handling units thus reducing load
on the AHUs.
The excess investment incurred to
incorporate the above mentioned
measures was estimated to payback in a
years time from savings in initial system
costs and reduced energy consumption.
Thermal modelling and simulation tools
(Visdoe 3.1 and HAP 4.0) were used to
accurately calculate the load reduction and
energy savings.
While building and system design
interventions help downsize HVAC
(Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning)
systems, use of appropriate controls help
to reduce consumption of the optimised
systems.
Lighting forms the major load centre in
unconditioned buildings and next to HVAC
systems in conditioned buildings. Energy
efficient lighting provides for right quality
and quantity of light with minimal energy
requirement. To accomplish this step, the
designer designs a lighting scheme for a
specific application based on illumination
levels recommended by BIS or IESNA
standards. The aim of the designers should
be to use efficient lamp and luminaire
combination to achieve the required
illumination level (lux or foot-candle level).
This helps the designer in ensuring that
the lighting power density (w/sq.ft) for a
particular space is not exceeding the
prescribed limits. The ASHRAE 90.1-2001
standards specify the lighting power
densities for different space categories.
Lighting simulation tools (e.g. lumen micro,
etc) could be used to design lighting
schemes for a given power density.
Lighting schemes are normally
designed for providing desired lux levels
for night-time conditions, i.e. without
considering presence of daylight. Suitable
control strategies are then devised e.g. use
of day-linked, occupancy sensors, time
switches, etc. to switch off or dim lights
during daytime or when an area is
unoccupied. Design for day lighting further
requires in-depth analysis of glare, visible
light transmission of glazing, sill level,
window position and height, orientation,
outdoor obstruction, indoor reflectance etc:
e.g. heat reflective glasses used in
buildings to reduce solar heat gain (to lower
cooling load) typically have low visible light
transmission, thus reducing daylight into
spaces. In a predominantly hot climate like
ours, glass with low shading co-efficient
and high visible transmittance should be
selected to reduce solar gains and increase
visible light transmission.
Efficient design of building envelope
and lighting is the foremost step in the
integrated design approach which helps to
minimise space-conditioning loads. The
task of the designer is then to use efficient
space conditioning equipment and controls
to further reduce energy consumption. In
an air-conditioned building use of efficient
space-conditioning equipment and
controls e.g. use of efficient chillers, air
handling units, pumps and cooling towers;
use of variable speed drives at AHU fan
motors, at cooling tower fan motors and
secondary chilled water pumps; use of low
leakage dampers, enthalpy control, dry
bulb economiser are some of many energy
conservation techniques possible for
HVAC systems.
Use of natural cooling systems e.g wind
towers, earth air tunnels etc., can be
integrated with conventional air
conditioning systems to save energy.
Judicious building and system design
can reduce energy consumption in a
building by 30-40% over conventionally
designed buildings. After maximising
energy saving opportunities in a building,
a designer may consider use of renewable
forms of energy to meet a part of the
buildings energy requirements e.g. use of
solar assisted water heating system, solar
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Green Buildings Green Business Directory
photovoltaic system can reduce
dependence on conventional/non-
renewable forms of energy.
Conclusions
With increasing energy prices,
diminishing reserves of conventional
forms of energy, and increasing GHG
emissions, green buildings are the need
of the hour. Globally speaking, in 1990, the
residential, commercial, and institutional
building sector consumed 31% of global
energy and emitted 1900 mega tonnes of
carbon and by 2050 its share would rise to
38% and 3800 mega tonnes respectively
(IPCC, Nov.1996). On the brighter side,
energy efficiency measures with paybacks
in five years or less can reduce global
emissions by 40% by 2050. With
increasing threat on our planet earth caused
by depleting resources and increasing
emissions it is absolutely pertinent that all
our future buildings should be designed to
function as green buildings.