Investigation and evaluation of high-rise buildings : A comparison of ECO Silver House in different climates

Sammanfattning: This thesis is a part of the project “Energy Efficient demo multi residential high-rise buildings” (EE-HIGHRISE) within the 7 Framework Program by the European Union which has started to contribute to the EU energy and climate change policy. A demonstration house called ECO Silver House is currently under construction in Ljubljana in Slovenia and is planned to reach the European passive house standard. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the model of Eco Silver House in different climates to see where in Europe ECO Silver House can reach passive house standard. In order to do that national regulations and recommendations needs to be taken in consideration. To perform the simulations two different simulating programs were used. Those were Passive House Planning Package (PHPP) and IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA ICE).  In PHPP the model of ECO Silver House was tested for the climate of five cities around Europe. Those cities were Stockholm, London, Rome, Buzet and Vienna. In IDA ICE, ECO Silver House was simulated in Ljubljana and Stockholm because of the limitation of time. After the investigation of the energy demands in the different countries the study continued with evaluating the model. A literature review on attitude in different European countries towards high-rise buildings was also conducted and some other high-rise buildings around Europe were investigated.  According to the PHPP analysis, ECO Silver House is fulfilling the European passive house requirements in London, Rome and Buzet. The passive house requirements is when the annual heating demand is below 15 kWh/(m2·year) or the heating load is below 10 W/m2 and the primary energy is under 120 kWh/(m2·year). In Ljubljana, Stockholm and Vienna the requirements are not met. It is possible to achieve the passive house standard in Vienna and Ljubljana through additional energy saving measures. However, in Sweden the building cannot achieve the passive house standard with energy saving measures such as a better heat exchanger and thicker insulation of the ambient walls. Also in IDA ICE ECO Silver House does not fulfill the passive house requirements in neither of the simulated countries. The results are very similar to the ones in PHPP with only the primary energy for Stockholm that differ noticeable. There are some other high-rise passive houses around Europe that proves that they are possible to build. Both in Sweden and Austria high-rise passive houses has been built in the recent years and an old conventional high-rise building has been renovated into passive house standard in Germany. When it comes to the acceptance towards high-rise buildings around Europe it shows that in the South and East part of Europe they have a more positive attitude towards it. In the North and West Europe they have a more skeptic view towards high-rise living. In central Europe they have for a long time had a negative attitude but today many high-rise projects in Switzerland and Germany are built which may change that attitude.