Research Article

A parametric building energy simulation case study on the potential and limitations of passive design in the Mediterranean climate of Malta

¹ Department of Environmental Design, Faculty for the Built Environment, University of Malta, Msida, MSD 2080, Malta
² Institute of Building Technology and Energy, School of Engineering and Architecture, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Technikumstrasse 21, 6048 Horw, Switzerland

^* e-mail: heinrich.manz@hslu.ch

Received: 20 July 2018
Accepted: 22 September 2018

Abstract

The present case study sets out to investigate the potential and limitations of passive building design in a typical Mediterranean climate. The Maltese Islands were taken as the case study location. Assuming a fully detached, cuboid-shaped, generic multi-storey office building, one representative storey was modelled by means of the building energy simulation code WUFI^®Plus. Thermal comfort was analysed based on the adaptive acceptable operative room temperature concept of EN 15251 for buildings without mechanical cooling systems. Assuming neither artificial heating nor cooling, the free-running operative room temperature was evaluated. By means of a parametric study, the robustness of the concept was analysed and the impact of orientation, window to wall area ratio, glazing, shading, thermal insulation, nighttime ventilation and thermal mass on the achievable level of thermal comfort is shown and discussed. It is concluded that in a well-designed building and by means of decent insulation (present case: U_wall = 0.54 W/(m²· K)), double glazing, variable external shading devices and passive cooling by nighttime ventilation, a high level of thermal comfort is achievable in this climate using only very minor amounts of energy for artificial heating and cooling or possibly even none at all.