The Passive Design Strategies and Energy Performance of a Zero-energy Solar House: Sunny Inside in Solar Decathlon China 2013

Abstract

This paper describes the passive design strategies of Sunny Inside, which is a zero-energy solar house designed to participate in Solar Decathlon China 2013. Ecological atrium design, shading design, natural ventilation design, heat storage system design and thermal insulation design of Sunny Inside are introduced and analyzed respectively. The discussion of the building's energy performance is based on the measured and simulated data by using several building simulation softwares in the study. Ecotect software is used to optimize the house's shading design through simulating the shading conditions. Phoenics software is used for simulating the natural ventilation design of Sunny Inside. Designbuilder software is used in building envelope design to analyze the building's energy consumption. The results show that Sunny Inside is reasonable in passive energy efficiency design.