About the project

Buildings account for about 40% of the global energy consumption and contribute over 30% of the CO2 emissions. A significant proportion of the increase in energy use is due to the spread of the HVAC installations in response to the growing demand for better thermal comfort within the built environment. In general, in developed countries HVAC is the largest energy end-use, accounting for about half of the total energy consumption in buildings especially non-domestic buildings.

Determining the influential parameters in thermal comfort is necessary to design comfortable spaces, improve health and wellbeing and allow to adopt new strategies of efficiency and energy-saving to consistently comply with the requirements of sustainable development. In fact, Indoor environmental conditions are strongly related to thermal comfort which has a direct implication in building energy efficiency.

According to INE, between 2007 and 2017, in Spain, the population over 65 has grown a 19% from 7.4 to 8.8 million persons and is expected to reach 11.5 million in 2030. Currently, there are about 366.633 home beds in approximately 5.378 elderly care centres. These buildings are generally constructed before 2000 and with a low energy efficiency design.

Thermal comfort standards have the objective of specifying the recommended indoor conditions for adults. Field studies show that current regulations cannot be applied to older people because their thermal responses are different. In general, the elderly prefer higher temperatures than adults but no field studies determine which environmental conditions are the most acceptable for this segment of the population. Higher indoor temperatures in summertime conditions would lead to less prevalence of cooling systems as well as fewer cooling requirements. Raising summer setpoint temperature has good energy-saving potential.

Considering that:

• The thermal comfort depends on the climatic region
• The greatest number of nursing homes are in continental and Mediterranean climatic regions
• Spanish elderly care centres are mainly built before 2000 so the building stock has low energy efficiency
• Existing thermal comfort standards are not applicable for elderly people
• Indoor and outdoor environmental conditions are strongly related to thermal comfort which has a direct implication in building energy efficiency 

This project aims to analyze the thermal comfort implications on energy consumption in nursing in different climatic regions in Spain.

Determining the influential parameters in thermal comfort is necessary to design comfortable spaces and allows to adopt new strategies of efficiency and energy-saving to consistently comply with the requirements of sustainable development.