SOLARHAUS - 76 Dwellings in Burlada

The aerothermal system installed in the basement draws air from the outside or from inside the garage, through dampers with temperature probes that open or close. The location of the heat pumps in the basement and the use of temperature-regulated dampers achieves an optimization of the system and lower energy expenditure. So that the air used in aerothermal energy is previously selected so that it must be heated less in the heating and hot water production process.

Regarding photovoltaic panels, it is a technology that advances rapidly, it is necessary to stay up to date and always have advanced information, the panels that we use today achieve better performance than those from years ago with much less capture surface.

Our most important support has been having the developer Construcciones Domeño as a client, which has been betting and risking for many years with innovative solutions for energy savings and sustainability in residential construction.

It is very important to know the local administration, know the environment well, physically and legally, and be very up to date with the technology available to offer a design that is innovative, realistic, feasible and safe, with proven, efficient and economically viable systems.

Resources

In our case, collaboration with the experts from the CENER technology centre and working with specialized engineering companies, such as Naven Ingenieros, have been essential.

The calculation is carried out using a 3D model of the building envelope that is entered into the calculation program used by the engineering office.

In this project, the unified tool LIDER-CALENER: HULC has been used to obtain the corresponding energy certification.

Challenges

Meeting the needs and objectives of a demanding client who is aware of sustainability in construction was our main target. In the previous project that we had developed for the same client, we managed to create a building with almost zero consumption.
In this project the client asked us to go one step further and move to a PEB type building using solar and aerothermal energy. The idea of placing the heat pump room underground and using the air from the garage, which always has a much more stable temperature than the outside, allowed us to achieve optimal results.

The large number of panels placed on the roofs of the buildings produces an amount of energy that sometimes, in months with high solar exposure, exceeds the needs of the building.

Solving the obstacles and difficulties imposed by the electricity supply company from dumping this energy into the general network was the greatest challenge of this project.

We recommend having specialists on the team who are well trained in BIM, so that the modeling is carried out with the necessary requirements to be able to make a good simulation of the behavior of the building.

We use REVIT from Autodesk as our main modelling software because it is an increasingly widespread program and it allows us to work in a collaborative environment with the engineering and the construction company in the design process. We can also find a wide catalogue of solutions developed by manufacturers, implement them directly in the model and then export the files and data in many other formats and process the information with other more specific programs such as HULC, Cypetherm, etc. But it is important to modify and adapt the families developed by the manufacturers so that the data obtained is appropriate. Using a good catalogue of windows and façade materials saves a lot of time and helps to achieve more adequate and accurate results.

There must also be a specialist on the team with qualified training for the calculation of the energy certification who is a qualified and approved expert, capable of filtering and interpreting the data in order to detect inaccuracies or errors in the introduction of information, which must be a meticulous task.

Designers should know well the terrain and environment, regarding materials and construction means available, in which they will work. It is advisable to work with proven and tested solutions but without giving up innovation and introducing unconventional systems.

It is very important to work together with an engineering company specialized in this type of buildings. Be very up to date with new systems and developments in energy saving and consumption facilities and invest in continuous education.

As we have mentioned previously, it is necessary to train users, generate a social culture that is committed and aware of the use and maintenance of this type of buildings.

We are finding that home buyers often lack the necessary information to understand the operation and advantages of the facilities of the newly built building in which they live.

In this specific case, although the monitoring data of the installation in the first year of use were excellent, the neighborhood community decided to replace part of the energy generated by the photovoltaic panels with a gas boiler.

Surely carrying out a plan of training actions with users would have avoided this circumstance. Sometimes the complexity of the installations requires awareness on the part of the users and their specific training.

The client must be well trained and advised. In this project, the community of neighbors should have hired a specialized maintenance company; this aspect is often not taken into account for economic reasons, but it is essential for the correct functioning of the installation.

As mentioned above, our architecture studio regularly collaborates with an engineering company, Naven Ingenieros, specialized and leading in the design of highly efficient facilities using renewable energies.

There should be more aid and promotion from the public administration for the incorporation of renewable energy systems in residential projects, which are nowadays scarce for new housing developments. However, the biggest obstacle that we have encountered in this project has been the electricity supply company, which placed all possible obstacles to the production and delivery of the electrical energy generated in the buildings.