Borchers, M; (2008) Implementation of the passive house standard in UK housing. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

With the threat of global warming reaching a tipping point, the UK have set themselves the ambitious target of reducing CO2 emissions by at least 60% by 2050 as compared to 1990 levels. In the built environment, current design criteria focus on reducing operational energy demand and are based on climate data observed over the past two decades. This study tries to establish what impact constructing to the Passive House standard would have on both energy demand and CO2 emissions of the UK housing stock. Based on a specific new-build Passive House it is looking beyond today's thermal performance. This is done by predicting total heating and cooling demand over the lifetime of the building using dynamic thermal modelling that takes into account forecasted future climate change. Furthermore, this study investigates the impact that passive design measures such as thermal mass and shading would have over the lifetime of the building, based on heating and cooling energy demand, as well as embodied energy. It was found that passive design measures were very effective in reducing cooling energy demand. They are predicted to lead to an overall reduction of C02 emissions due to heating and cooling of up to 50%. However, it was also found that the materials selected for the passive design measures do have a significant impact on the total CO2 emissions over the lifetime of the building, including both operational and embodied energy. Overall, the Passive House standard was found to be an effective tool for achieving the UK's CO2 reduction target. However, the results of this study show that embodied energy and embodied C02 have to be taken into consideration in the C02 calculation. It is concluded that besides Building Regulations controlling operational energy demand, more emphasis needs to be given to material selection.

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