Evaluation of the energy consumption and overheating of homes in Miami, Guayaquil and Tenerife

Abstract

Year after year, global warming is elevating temperatures all over the world, causing indoor overheating environments that are inhabitable, and increasing energy demand in housing. Given this global concern, the aim of the study was to evaluate the thermal behavior of the house in the cities of Miami, Guayaquil and Tenerife, by a comparison assisted with a simulation for their indoor overheating hours and cooling demand, considering their climates, energy efficiency codes, and construction systems. These were: Miami, with two models (M1 with timber frame as the thermal envelope and M2 with a concrete block system), Guayaquil, with two models (G1 with the limitations for a dwelling with cooling system and G2 without it), and Tenerife with only one model. As a result, was found that Miami is the case with the higher consumption, which has a higher energy demand in a house of timber wall system than in a house of concrete block system, due to the thermal inertia. Despite that both models have the same usage time for the cooling system, meaning that more power was needed to reach the thermal comfort. Then, Guayaquil and Tenerife, are the cases that follows, with less consumption. While, according to the UNE EN 16798 methodology, in the indoor overheating hour evaluation in a year, Miami has the higher cases with a 31.43% of its hours in overheating for the timber frame system and a 22.88% for the concrete block system, followed by two cases in Guayaquil, with 4.2%, other with none, and also Tenerife with 2.43%. Nevertheless, the study showed that energy consumption is not necessarily related to the indoor overheating hours that a house could have. Given that, in the case of Guayaquil, where it doesn’t have any indoor overheating hour in all year, while Tenerife, with a similar energy consumption, has 2.43% of its hours in overheating. Due to the different parameters that the UNE follows in comparison with the cooling setpoints given by the CTE-DB-HE all over the year for the respective cases, because of their long warm seasons. Therefore, the study analyses the limits establish by the Spanish normative in relation to overheating, showing an overestimation assessment if the results with the UNE methodology are compared.