Upgrading the building's energy performance with an advanced ventilated façade system

This paper aims at identifying the energy benefits deriving from the installation of a new technological solution developed for the retrofit of existing buildings within the research project E2VENT. The E2VENT system comprises an advanced ventilated façade, a heat exchanger, a heat storage and a smart management system, and as such it addresses both the heat losses through the building envelope and the poor air quality problems often prevailing in older buildings. The performance of the E2VENT system is assessed for a typical residential multi-family building unit with different thermal insulation levels located in different climates. It is compared to the baseline scenario, assuming that no thermal insulation exists, and also against the conventional renovation scenario of external thermal insulation composite system (ETICS). The results show that the E2VENT system performs better when compared to the conventional ETICS scenario. In all cases the heating loads are significantly reduced, while the cooling loads are also reduced, but at a more moderate rate.