Influence of Ventilation and Infiltration Flow Rates on Energy Demand in Residential Buildings of Spain

Abstract

This work focuses on the study of the influence of ventilation flows on the energy demand of buildings with residential use. Currently, the Technical Building Code (CTE) is the Spanish regulation that regulates the criteria for design, calculation and execution of ventilation installations. The current criteria for the calculation of ventilation flows are conditioned by criteria of health of the air. However, these criteria influence the determinant form on the demands of conditioning, especially in heating.In this work a detailed method is applied for calculating hourly and hourly ventilation and infiltration flows. This method allows to study the influence of variables such as the permeability of the faces (fixed in EN 15242: 2007), the external wind velocity, on the ventilation flows. In addition, we study the influence of these flows on the heating demands. This study is carried out in three Spanish climatic zones (Cadiz, Madrid and Zaragoza), where the external wind velocities and climatic severity change substantially. The result of this work demonstrates the importance of these variables, especially in the heating demands, finding differences of up to 14% depending on the wind zone and the permeability of the building façade.