ZEMCH 2015 - International Conference Proceedings | Page 595
International Conference | Bari - Lecce, Italy
Session VIII
ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE AND SOLAR
ENERGY POTENTIAL OF CHILEAN MASS HOUSING
Rodrigo García Alvarado1
1 Depto. Diseño y Teoría de la Arquitectura, Universidad del Bío-Bío, Chile, [email protected]
Abstract
In development countries, Chile has a pioneer situation in housing provision, due last decades
has carried out several state programs and private initiatives. Nowadays, the country meet the
regular housing demand through massive real estate developments, based on individual and
public funding. However, it presents a growth of energy consumption and environmental
challenges in dwellings. This issue is been faced with regulations for energy-efficiency and
several actions to promote sustainable building and renewable sources. Although this initiatives are yet incipient and lack enough information about local condition and procedures.
This work reports studies aimed to the rehabilitation of existing dwellings, through comprehensive assessment of environmental situation in a sample of houses in the most populated
zone of the country, as well as exploration of new designs and solar energy integration. The
first part was developed with a physical monitoring and extensive analysis of occupancy in
ten homes, and environmental simulation models and a procedure to define retrofit solutions with financial estimation and participation of residents, tested at the end in three of
the cases. Then, it reports experiences to review design of current housings with reduced
energy consumption, and analysis to integrate solar energy with a test-bed of different systems and urban map of solar potentials, as well as evaluation of integrated devices in houses
and design proposals. Those activities has revealed that most of existing homes can improve
substantially theirs environmental performance with a partial retrofit or design modifications,
with a reduction about a third of fuel demand and increase their thermal condition. Besides,
that single homes can accommodate solar systems to supply domestic demand and provide
surplus energy.
Keywords
Environmental Performance, Retrofit, Solar Energy Potential, Chile.
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