Natural ventilation for energy savings in California commercial buildings

This project involves research groups at UC San Diego, UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Arup (San Francisco) and CPP Wind. It is funded by the California Energy Commission through the PIER program.

The project is designed to increase the opportunities for the implementation of wind-driven natural ventilation by retro-fitting in the existing non-domestic building sector in CA.  The projects consists of three main components:

1. 1.Barriers and technical potential
   

This study examines the range of buildings that may be suitable for retro-fit of natural ventilation, taking into account the different climate zones in CA. It also examines possible barriers such as fire regulations and external noise.

2. 2.Indoor environmental quality
   

This component examines the impacts of external pollution on IEQ and consists of a monitoring program in an existing NV building. It will also study the use of unconventional NV, using personalised fans and night cooling.

3. Model development

Using a combination of wind-tunnel tests, CFD and scaling analysis, this study will develop new simplified algorithms for wind-driven NV for a range of different configurations including single-sided and cross-ventilation. These algorithms will be implemented in the US DOE code EnergyPlus

The San Francisco Federal Building under construction. The building, opened in 2009, has a naturally (wind-driven) ventilated office tower. The pictures show details of the exposed ceiling slab which provides thermal mass.

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