ongoing

This project aims to conduct a comprehensive and scientifically robust assessment of the effectiveness of natural ventilation in Irish dwellings

Project Insights

  • €329,150

    Total Project Costs
  • 4 yr

    Project Duration
  • 2019

    Year Funded

Project Description

The ALIVE project will assess the capability of natural ventilation to reduce energy consumption and avoid overheating, while simultaneously maintaining indoor environmental quality (IEQ) within Irish buildings. Remotely-operated sensors will continuously collect IEQ data in naturally-ventilated buildings, collecting an estimated 100 million data points, which will be stored in an open-repository and accessible to all relevant stakeholders. Gathering complementary thermal comfort, building characteristics, utility bills, occupancy/activity schedules is also a critical component of the integrated approach as the intent is to deploy novel applications of data analytics and machine-learning tools to identify temporal data trends that account for the above features. A complementary indoor air quality assessment will be carried out for key pollutants of concern. The combined database will be analysed in terms of WHO and CIBSE guidelines to identify occupants' air pollution exposure and thermal comfort. The proposed approach will deploy and validate Building Energy Performance Simulation models that integrate IEQ and energy components for domestic and non-domestic locations to evaluate the approach in real-world conditions. These integrated models will be used to determine the impact of natural ventilation on IEQ and overheating for each archetype and evaluate potential impacts to BER and NEAP ratings. The project will also assess the impact of specific recommendations on the national building stock. Integrated simulations will also examine additional meteorological conditions, current/future climate conditions, occupancy scenarios and emission profiles. Overall, this project will conduct a comprehensive and scientifically robust assessment of the effectiveness of natural ventilation in Irish dwellings.

Project Details

Total Project Cost: €329,150

Funding Agency: SEAI

Year Funded: 2019

Lead Organisation: National University of Ireland, Galway (NUIG)

Partner Organisation(s): University College Dublin (UCD)

Miriam Byrne

Lead Researcher