Thesis Title  «Decarbonization of residential buildings»

Monday 7  Octomber 2019, at: 14:00, Venue: Hall Κ2.A3

Examination Committee

• Associate Professor  Dionysia Kolokotsa (advisor)
• Professor Mihalis Lazaridis
• Professor Nikolaos Nikolaidis

Abstract

One of the most serious environmental problems affecting the global community is the increased greenhouse gas emissions which are the main source of global building sector, whose the biggest persistence is residential. Because of design, operation and use of each building, consumption of energy is required, generated from various sources, conventional or renewable, that create an environmental footprint through CO2 emissions. The present thesis deals with the problem of direct CO2 emissions from a dwelling and the expedients of decarbonization. The main purpose of the thesis is to transform a house into a zero-emission building. Initially, the building was energy upgraded by insulating the building shell, replacement of heating system and energy consumption reduction measures. Subsequently, after the individual simulation of each measure, combinatorial models were applied to export the results that can be achieved by the simultaneous application of these measures, and to calculate the CO2 emissions if a cooling system is going to be installed for optimum thermal comfort for the users. The next step was to replace conventional sources of electricity with new RES technologies. Finally, for the cases where it was managed to convert the house into a zero-emission building, it was calculated the cost and the repayment period. The present thesis has led to useful conclusions, mainly that CO2 emissions are highly correlated with energy consumption and the effort to reduce them entails a reduction in emissions. One of the most important factor in reducing emissions is the production of energy from renewable energy sources, such us solar energy and biomass. For the absolute building decarbonization it was suggested for studies in the future the appreciation of embodied carbon during its life cycle, the performance optimization of RES that is the decisive decarbonising factor and the effectiveness of establish a residential building by environmentally friendly materials.