An energy assessment of a multifunctional building

The awareness of sustainability has struck Swedish cities, proven by various documents that have popped up describing and making targets for social, economic and environmental sustainability. In Göteborg the area around the Göta river is brought to the attention, since restructuring/renovating the district would lower the ecological footprint, by making the city more compact. A plan by the non-profit organisation Super Sustainable to enforce this development is the foundation of this Master thesis. The voluntary architects propose a passive housing concept – the multifunctional building – in which shops, offices and apartments are smartly located to lower the energy use and increase the energy efficiency, in the end aiming at a net zero-energy state. This thesis tries to assess the multifunctional building by both determining the energy demand and energy supply side of the building. It is energy modelled with EnergyPlus and OpenStudio to determine on the one hand the heat need for hot water and on the other hand the need for household and space heating/cooling electricity. The supply side is based on on-site renewable energy production techniques and is represented by calculations on wind, solar and waste energy. It is concluded that the concept of the multifunctional building does not function as well as was thought. Next to that turns out that the energy demand (especially for electricity) is too high to be covered by the proposed mix of renewable energies. The results for the demand are in line with what is known about state-of-the art passive housing apartments. Nevertheless could the supply be upgraded by including a geothermally based heat and power production. Above all, for shops and offices more reliable academic data is needed, such that a better overall assessment can be performed