Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems

Delft University of Technology via edX Professional Certificate

Overview

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People spend more than 80% of their time in buildings, therefore a good thermal comfort and quality of the indoor environment are essential for people’s wellbeing. At the same time, buildings and their energy systems are responsible for around 40% of the worldwide energy consumption and carbon emissions.

In this program you will learn how to design energy efficient and more sustainable buildings whilst improving the thermal quality of their indoor environment.

This Program consists of four courses.

In order to consider how to increase the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings, you will discover the energy needs and thermal behavior of buildings. You will learn to answer questions like: how does solar radiation impact the heating and cooling needs? Is there something like an optimal window size, or optimum insulation or orientation? What is the impact of ventilation on the energy needs? Why do architects sometimes design fully glazed atria oriented to the north?

A building not only has energy needs, but also energy supply. Therefore the second course takes you on a journey through the world of energy conversion and related carbon emissions. You will discover how to convert natural resources into the needed heat, cold and electricity. This course will give you the skills to choose energy systems for low carbon buildings and building stocks.

During the third course you will learn how to master a good indoor thermal comfort and how that closely relates to buildings’ energy systems. You will be able to answer questions like under which conditions is floor heating comfortable, or why does a comfortable temperature also depend on the chosen ventilation system. Or why there will always be comfort complains even in the building design.

Finally, you will discover how to combine energy supply and (ground) storage systems and how to distribute heat, cold and air in buildings. You will know why and when to apply an all-air system, radiators, floor heating or a cooled ceiling. You will understand the processes in air handling units and know how to maximize comfort while making sure the carbon emissions are the lowest possible. You will also discover the basics of how to optimally control all these systems.

Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Energy Demand in Buildings

Discover how building design and occupancy determines the energy demand in buildings and learn how to (re)design low energy buildings.

Course 2: Energy Supply Systems for Buildings

Discover how to convert natural resources into heat, cold and electricity, what the capabilities of renewable systems are, how to match energy supply with buildings’ energy demand, and what that means for energy efficiency and carbon emissions.

Course 3: Comfort and Health in Buildings

Learn how to realize thermally comfortable and healthy buildings and how energy technologies impact comfort.

Course 4: Efficient HVAC Systems

Learn how to decide on efficient combinations of energy conversion systems and how to distribute and control air and energy flows in buildings whilst minimizing carbon emissions and optimizing thermal comfort in close consideration with the architect.

Courses

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5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
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Building design strongly influences the quantity of heating, cooling and electricity needed during building operation. Therefore, a correct thermal design is essential to achieve low energy and low carbon buildings, with good indoor air quality.

This course will enable you to understand the basic principles of the energy chain: demand, supply and distribution; and how they relate to design principles for sustainable and energy-efficient buildings.

Second, you will discover what type of heat losses and gains take place in buildings’ operations. You will learn how to estimate these flows using simple meteorological data and construction properties. You will acquire knowledge on how to estimate heat transfer through construction, ventilation, solar radiation or caused by internal sources or heat storage in the construction.

Third, you will learn to make estimates of buildings’ energy needs on an hourly basis by using simple static energy balances: how much energy comes in and out and which air temperature is needed? When is there heating or cooling? How much electricity is needed?

Fourth, you will discover how to extend your estimates to yearly energy demand, which is essential to make sure that a building is energy efficient and to estimate energy savings and energy costs. You will then also be able to determine the size of the needed heating and cooling equipment (which determines the costs of equipment).

Finally, you will learn how to optimize building design and will be able to find out the optimal window size or the optimum insulation thickness for your building. You will know why putting windows on the south façade is not always energy-efficient. You will understand the thermal interactions between building components and be able to make informed decisions on how to increase the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings.

This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to choose low carbon energy supply, how to create a comfortable indoor environment, and how to control and optimize HVAC systems.

The development of this course is supported by Climate-KIC.
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6 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
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In this course, you will discover the supply side of buildings’ energy chain.

The first step is to consider how to convert natural resources into the energy needed by buildings: what are the options to create heat, cold and electricity? You will learn about efficiency and use this concept to estimate building’s primary energy use and carbon emissions. This concept is widely used in many national and international policies and building regulations, and is essential to counteract climate change.

You will study the performances of single heating systems like electrical heating, gas, or renewables like biomass, solar boilers and geothermal heat, followed by single cooling systems like evaporative cooling and environmental cold.

We will also examine the systems that concurrently produce heat and cold. Do you know for instance that a heat pump and a cooling machine are identical devices? You will learn about the basic working principles of heat pumps and how to make sure they achieve high performance levels. After this course you will know how an Aquifer Thermal Storage makes smart use of the ground to deliver cold in summer and heat in winter.

Diverse electricity generation methods using turbines (wind, hydro), photovoltaics or hydrogen fuel cells will also be examined. You will learn how cogeneration of heat and power works and why this is important for the rational use of energy resources. You will also know why heat pumps are often combined with boilers or to which extent it is worth to invest in batteries for your solar panels.

By the end of the course you will be able to decide on how to combine energy conversion systems at building level in order to match buildings’ energy demand while keeping costs acceptable, using a minimum of natural resources and producing a minimum of carbon emissions.

This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to design buildings with low energy demand, how to create a comfortable indoor environment, and how to control and optimize HVAC systems.

The development of this course is supported by Climate-KIC.
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5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
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Even in the well-accepted indoor temperature range of 20-24°C (68-75°F), people can experience thermal discomfort. Complaints about the indoor thermal environment are one of the major complaints building and facility managers have to deal with, and they spend a large amount of their time and money to solve them. People spend more than 80% of their time in buildings. Therefore a good thermal comfort and quality of the indoor environment are essential for their wellbeing, health and productivity.

In this course you will learn how to ensure good indoor thermal comfort and air quality, and how these factors relate to building design and to buildings’ energy systems. Comfort complaints mean user dissatisfaction, which in turn means delays and resistance to accept technologies needed for low carbon emission buildings. So if you want to discover what to pay attention to in your energy designs, or in designing new concepts for sustainable buildings, this course is for you.

First you will discover the two main theories of thermal comfort, learning which measurable physical parameters and combinations of parameters impact people’s comfort. Second, you will understand why it is so difficult to create indoor environments satisfying everyone and which main parameters to tune to make buildings comfortable. Third, you will discover how to measure, analyze and solve existing comfort complaints, and finally you will find out what determines a healthy indoor air quality.

This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to design buildings with low energy demand, how to choose low carbon energy supply, and how to control and optimize HVAC systems.

The development of this course is supported by Climate-KIC.
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5 weeks, 4-6 hours a week, 4-6 hours a week
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In this course you will start by identifying the different steps a HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) engineers need to follow to come to a proper design while collaborating with the architect.

You will then learn how to distribute heat and cold using air and water systems, what temperature levels to use in both and how that relates to the type of energy supply and to the thermal quality of the building construction. You will further deepen your knowledge on air handling units and how to humidify and dehumidify air when needed and what that does mean for the energy consumption. As ventilation systems are often responsible for local thermal discomfort, you will also discover how different distribution systems lead to different comfort experiences and different indoor air qualities and you will know which simple control techniques can be applied.

Finally you will study a modern complex system consisting of an aquifer thermal storage, heat pump, boiler, solar collector, PV-cells, air handling unit, water and air distribution systems. This will allow you to develop skills to catch the complexity of such HVAC systems and to understand the basic rules of how to control them to get the best out of them and how to use data from the Building Energy Management System to help you in this task.

This course is part of the PCP Buildings as Sustainable Energy Systems. In the other courses in this program you can learn how to design buildings with low energy demand, how to choose low carbon energy supply and how to determine if this will lead to a comfortable indoor environment.

The development of this course is supported by Climate-KIC.