Study On Energy Performance Of Buildings With Double Skin Facade And Photovoltaics: With Reference To Hot Summer And Cold Winter Zone

The glass curtain wall is often used with a large area on office building facade. However,since the insulation properties of the glass is lower than a lot of opaque materials, it results inhigher building heating/cooling energy consumption. In the1980s, Europe began to developthe construction of double skin facade (DSF) office building to reduce energy consumption.Whilst DSF building in cold climate has been investigated and documented well, there is stilllimited research on energy performance of DSF building in hot summer and cold winterclimate. Domestic research on this theme is also quite inadequate. Therefore, the present studyaims at developing a better understanding of energy performance of a DSF building integratedwith photovoltaics (PV) in hot summer and cold winter zone in China. This is done byassessing the influence of different factors in building energy demand and electricity outputfrom PV panels. Factors include geometrical form, material, and air change rate in the cavityof DSF.To conduct this study, three cities at different part of this climatic zone were selected asthe investigated locations. Annual energy demand of an office building with staggered DSFand curved DSF was examined in energy calculation software Ecotect.Results showed that DSF building with PVs as shading panels could effectively reducethe building energy consumption in this particular climatic zone resulting from the combinedeffect of shading and collecting solar energy. Tremendous forms and variables as the DSFbuilding has, there was no “best choice”. However, the proposed DSF-PV combined formsand suggested optimum configurations, such as materials and air change rate, can serve asguideline and reference for building designs.