Objective
The project is finalised to prepare and test an educational package directed to disseminate - via training courses - and transfer to the end-users the knowledge on the integrated effects of the most appropriate solar passive techniques in Mediterranean countries, emphasising the cooling needs. The dissemination of these design criteria and techniques will allow to reach the following objectives:
- Decreasing of energy consumption from non-renewable sources on annual basis;
- Decreasing of peak load for the electricity network due to the operation of conventional air conditioners;
- Reducing of imports of air conditioners from non EU Countries;
- Increasing of productivity into the working place;
- Increasing of the indoor comfort conditions at low energy cost;
- Decreasing of the environmental pollution;
- Supporting the European Building Industry in the marketing of innovative components.
The main steps of the project consisted of the preparation of the educational material and the performing of two parallel training courses, in Italy and in Greece, devoted to professionals specialized in buildings. The preparation of the educational material was carried out by considering the research outcomes derived from previous EU activities in which CONPHOEBUS and University of Athens were involved. In particular they refer to several projects within the frame of DG XII Programmes (i.e. PASCOOL, SAVE, WIS, COMBINE). The outcomes of these projects concern Handbooks on Passive Cooling, Predesign and Design Tools, Guidelines on Passive Applications, Market Survey on Passive Components.
The final products consist of a Guide-Book on passive cooling design and a new powerful educational software, called Mather. The Guide-Book comes from a preliminary introduction on fundamentals, physics insight, terminology and phenomenology of the interaction between energy and buildings. Afterwards, a survey on passive solar applications to Space Heating is done. Then, all the topics related to summer comfort are developed. Namely: Siting and Microclimate, Solar Control, Thermal Inertia, Natural Ventilation and other environmental Sinks for passive cooling.
Mather is a computer interface front-end connected to the software outcomes of other EU funded research projects, such as PASSPORT Plus, developed inside PASCOOL for summer behaviour building simulation, and NORMA, developed inside the 'Zephyr' competition for passive cooling applications. Mather has been previously refined and adapted to the national context in order to use it as on-line assistance package. This tool was distributed free of charge during the training courses.
Because of the already well-established collaboration finalised to Mediterranean Areas and the available expertise, the developed material is not just Greek or Italian, but Mediterranean oriented. As a consequence it can be used in future by other countries and groups, increasing its potential of utilisation.
The training courses held in Italy were addressed to architects and civil engineers working in the private and public sector whereas those held in Greece were also extended to physicists working in the building sector. Each course lasted one week and the timetable was arranged compatibly with the professional business requirements of the trainers.
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95030 Piano d'Arci Catania
Italy