COHEVES Tool. Mitigation of present and future indoor overheating in educational buildings through optimized retrofit solutions

Description

-- DESCRIPTION – The interactive COHEVES Tool is the result of the research work developed in the R&D&I project “Ventilation strategies for improving comfort and health in schools in the context of nearly zero-energy consumption” (PID2020-117722RB-I00) (https://institucional.us.es/prcoheves/), funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through the 2017–2020 State Plan for Scientific and Technical Research and Innovation – Societal Challenges It is an open-access tool, which allows the interactive visualization of the project results related to the thermal and energy optimisation of retrofitting strategies applied to the existing public secondary school building stock in southern Spain. This tool is intended to serve as a starting point for decision-making processes concerning building stock retrofitting from both regional and global perspectives. To this end, it provides critical information regarding the thermal performance of several combined retrofitting strategy packages, including passive envelope improvement measures, operational variables, and interventions based on different ventilation systems and rates. These strategies are designed to enhance thermal comfort while simultaneously meeting the minimum indoor air quality requirements for school environments, as stipulated by the applicable regulations. The tool offers outputs for different levels of intervention and focuses particularly on improving building performance during the summer period, with the aim of reducing the percentage of overheating hours (%). Consequently, it is conceived as a tool to help mitigate indoor overheating in school environments caused by the effects of climate change. The tool is implemented as an interactive parallel coordinates plot, developed using the HiPlot – High Dimensional Interactive Plotting application (available for download at https://pypi.org/project/hiplot/ and described in more detail at https://facebookresearch.github.io/hiplot/index.html) and programmed in Python v3.6. -- INSTRUCTIONS – To open the interactive COHEVES tool you must click on one of the *.html files attached, which may be launched in any internet browser. Two versions of the COHEVES tool have been developed: (1) the first one focuses on energy and thermal results under a current climatic scenario (“COHEVES Tool_present.html”), and (2) the second one includes energy and thermal results that consider a global warming scenario based on the 2050 climate projection (“COHEVES Tool_2050.html”). Consequently, users must select the one that matches better their specific interests. A more detail description on the operation and management of the interactive tool is provided in the “Use Manual COHEVES Tool.pdf” document, which also includes a link to a video tutorial.

Steps to reproduce

The interactive COHEVES Tool has been created as follows: Step 1. Gathering information on the building characterization of the existing public High School Building stock in southern Spain and determining representative value ranges of the main building variables. Step 2. Construction of energy simulation models at the building stock level through a complex process of parameterization, ensuring their proper calibration and validation. Step 3. Incorporation of energy passive retrofit strategies and both mechanical and direct evaporative cooling ventilation solutions to improve thermal performance under adaptive comfort standards. Step 4. Obtaining optimized retrofit solutions through a multi-objective analysis based on the application of genetic algorithms, considering the minimization of undercooling discomfort hours in winter and overheating discomfort hours in summer, while guaranteeing adequate indoor air quality conditions. Step 5. Exporting the obtained results and creating an interactive and free graphical viewer in *.html format to guarantee a friendly visualization and social dissemination of the work.

Institutions

• Universidad Politecnica de Madrid

  Comunidad de Madrid, Madrid
• Universidad de Sevilla

  Andalucía, Sevilla

Categories

Licence