INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT THERMAL INSULATION THICKNESS ON BUILDING ENERGY CONSUMPTION

Abstract

Today, one of the major research tasks is to improve building energy balance and to reduce building energy consumption. In this paper, the possibilities to decrease energy consumption of Serbian residential buildings are analyzed, through the variation of thermal insulation thickness. It is investigated the building with PV panels on the roof which generates the electricity for building needs. As the most unfavorable case due to energy consumption, the building with electrical space heating is investigated. The major aim was to determine the optimal values of thermal insulation thickness and the area of the PV array, in order to achieve the zero-net energy building (ZNEB). The buildings are simulated in EnergyPlus environment. Open Studio plug-in in Google SketchUp was used for buildings design, Hooke-Jeeves algorithm for optimization and GENOPT software for software execution control.