Integral design to enhance climatic equipment performance: Flexergy

Effects of Global Warming, caused largely by energy consumption, became a major concern during the last decade. Sustainable buildings became the major guiding principle for building and spatial planning practice. Improving building performance by enhanced building operation starts with an efficient design. Sustainable buildings need an approach within the design process to reach a maximum level of integration between occupants, building, Heating Ventilation and Air-conditioning (HVAC)-systems and sustainable energy. Design tools for implementing sustainable energy into the energy infrastructure of a building or buildings are presently lacking. In the conceptual phase of design this makes it impossible to balance and tune the demand for and the supply of renewable energy in the built environment in a dynamic way. New solutions are needed for more effective renewable energy solutions on the combined level of building and infrastructure. A design methodology for structuring and combining different energy flows, within a building and between buildings, is presented. This enables the design of new renewable energy concepts aimed on combining and exchanging different energy flows for HVAC, lighting and power demand. This methodology leads to more flexibility of the energy infrastructure; Flex(ible) (en)ergy.