Influence of thermal enclosures on energy saving simulations of residential building typologies in european climatic zones

Nowadays, the computational simulation of the energy consumption in buildings is a key issue to determine the most proficient configuration between the construction solutions and the necessary equipment, without compromising comfort and accomplishing the legal requirements for each country. The feasible and most profitable solutions can lead to minimizing CO2 emissions and environmental impact. In this work, the internal enclosures influencing the evaluation of energy consumption by energy simulation have been analysed in order to obtain an accurate solution when all the information regarding the internal partitions is not available. The main aim of the present research was to evaluate the role of internal distribution in the simulations of the total building energy consumption. Differences between the results of the energy simulations of buildings that are calculated considering their internal distribution, and those in which only the exterior geometry that makes up the perimeter of the envelope are being described. In this way, it is intended to establish a correction factor based on the building typology and the European climate zone that allows simulation tools to describe the energy reality of a building without knowing its internal distribution. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland