Research, Development and Training

These simulation methods also help formulate policy level decisions. However, when the results of such simulated building models are compared to on site measurements; there is bound to be differences. Simulation tools are developed across the world based on empirical data, research, computational skills and software development, yet it is believed and understood that discrepancies against actual measured data is inevitable. This huge gap in the knowledge database needs to be addressed and studied, especially for the Indian context. The idea is to study these differences and derive parallels relations between simulated data and on-site measured data.

CEPT has developed adaptive thermal comfort model contextual to climate conditions in India. This study addressed comfort expectations of office workers in naturally ventilated building, mixed mode buildings (buildings which rely on mechanical cooling systems to maintain thermal comfort only during adverse outdoor conditions) and air conditioned buildings. Study found strong evidence that Indians can be comfortable at higher temperature the year with wider range of temperature adaptability of Indian subjects.

Such operational practices are largely attributed to an increased expectation for stable comfort conditions.  In the absence of space conditioning standard contextual to Indian context, the space conditioning systems for buildings are designed based on ISO and ASHRAE thermal comfort standards. Field observations have indicated that these systems often operate at 22.5 ± 1°C (72.5°F ± 1.8°F) all year round without adjusting to comfort needs of the occupants. Such operational practices are largely attributed to an increased expectation for stable comfort conditions. 

India’s Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) references National Building Code for ventilation guidelines in naturally ventilated buildings, but it does not deal with conditioning requirements contextual to climate zones. In the ECBC user guide, the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE, 2009) also recommends “Adaptive comfort model” as “additional information” to users.



However, the ECBC remains silent on the recommended temperature and humidity conditions for space conditioning of buildings for Indian climatic conditions.  CEPT, with support from SSEF and MNRE (Govt of India), has developed adaptive thermal comfort model contextual to climate conditions in India. This study addressed comfort expectations of office workers in naturally ventilated building, mixed mode buildings (buildings which rely on mechanical cooling systems to maintain thermal comfort only during adverse outdoor conditions) and air conditioned buildings Study found strong evidence that Indians can be comfortable at higher temperature than 24 degree centigrade fix temperature across the year. Study also indicates wider range of temperature adaptability of Indian subjects.

Deployment of adaptive thermal comfort standard is expected to save enormous amount of savings, however, no significant study has been carried out to understand larger benefit of such standard. Adaptive thermal comfort standard also will allow many other non-conventional, Low energy cooling technology to serve space cooling requirements. Identification of such technology will also make path of wider range of product availability in Market. Following graph illustrates that hot and dry climate, ECBC envelop can provide decrease in uncomfortable hours, remaining uncomfortable hours can be served with low energy cooling systems.

Impact of Energy Building Code at City level:

City administration consumes large amount of their financial resources on electricity to manage city level facilities such as street lights, water pumping, and their own buildings – hospitals, ward offices, and essential services. During CEPT’s study on Benchmarking of city administration buildings, it became apparent that the city administration does not have required processes and systems to take informed decision as well as to implement energy efficiency measures.

Local city governments are smallest and yet the most important units in implementation & enforcement of ECBC. To understand energy saving potential of implementation of ECBC at city level, city needs to collate data regarding new building construction and their probable usage. To link present land use, floor space character, future land use allocation, and future energy demand are essential to parameter to understand impact of energy efficiency in buildings. This also will be able to provide insight in to change in peak demand, which will be of interest to utility.

Presently, no such mechanism does exist to access information regarding available floor space and future addition in it. ULB do not have framework in place to collate this information. Few city level administrations have created energy conservation cells but they are not mandated to work in conjunction with Town development or estate offices, and hence do not focus on ECBC. It is important for city administrations to develop such processes to envisage benefits of ECBC implementations.

CARBSE proposes to study one city in detail to develop processes that can be practiced to achieve energy efficiency at buildings owned by city government and understand enforcement of ECBC at city level.

This is particularly pertinent in developing countries such as India as disposable income increases, making AC easily accessible. Many of India’s most populous metropolises such as Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta have hot and humid climates, and growth rates in the use of AC is seen at approximately 30% per year. The electricity demand for space cooling comprises up to 60% of the summer peak load in large cities like New Delhi, and most air-conditioners are inefficient and use refrigerants with high GWP (Global Warming Potential). This makes energy efficiency and thermal comfort a priority area for the Indian government which reflects in recent revisions of its National Building and Energy Conservation Building Codes which emphasize the need to design buildings for Natural Ventilation (NV) and Mixed Mode (MM) operation.

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With an increase in affordability and power supply, the future shall see a steep rise in demand for air conditioning. By 2030, 60% of commercial space and 40% of residential households in India are expected to be air-conditioned. The space cooling systems adopted in developing nations like India have a great impact on the economy as well greenhouse gas emissions.

The ISO and ASHRAE thermal comfort standards are used to design space conditioning systems, where the systems operate at 22.5 ± 1°C. The ASHRAE 55-2010 standard includes an adaptive thermal comfort model to differentiate the thermal response of occupants in air-conditioned and naturally ventilated buildings. However, until now there has been a lack of a contextual model for adaptive thermal comfort for India, even though a large proportion of existing as well as new buildings are either fully naturally ventilated or use natural ventilation for most of the year, supplemented by air-conditioning.

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This is particularly pertinent in developing countries such as India as disposable income increases, making AC easily accessible. Many of India’s most populous metropolises such as Mumbai, Chennai and Calcutta have hot and humid climates, and growth rates in the use of AC is seen at approximately 30% per year. The electricity demand for space cooling comprises up to 60% of the summer peak load in large cities like New Delhi, and most air-conditioners are inefficient and use refrigerants with high GWP (Global Warming Potential). 
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Under the project  testing facilities and protocols as per standards were developed to characterize materials including glass and mirrors for their thermo-physical-optical properties.  Database for energy efficient built environment in India as per indigenize guidelines, codes and standards was generated. Extensive research was done   in energy policy with integrated approach to resource planning.  Existing curriculum was reviewed and recommendations were developed  based on feedback obtained from stakeholders. A living laboratory was established to develop concepts of Net-Zero Energy Technologies – construct technology demonstration building to house centre activities.  The implementation of GRIHA, ECBC and other codes, develop standards and labeling program for Fenestration, Insulation and Solar Thermal products were facilitated under the project. It also developed criteria for sustainable higher educational campuses and conduct post-occupancy evaluations. Conducted capacity building activities by developing e-lectures, training of trainers, organizing workshops on computer simulation and various related topics.
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Objectives:
- To serve as a single platform for monitoring and controls in the building
- To provide testbed for development of new technologies and control algorithms
- To integrate with test chambers for effective operations and controls 

Figure 1: Details of Monitoring, Integration and Controls Philosophy

Building control system continuously monitors installed components and uses efficient algorithms to optimize building performance. The building design incorporates sophisticated controls strategy such as demand ventilation, economizer based on enthalpy, chilled water reset, heat recovery wheel optimization algorithm, and chiller performance optimization.

The control system will also be able to configure various indoor comfort condition algorithms such as operation based on schedule, based on custom adaptive comfort equation, and based on equation of outdoor/indoor conditions, or based on PMV algorithm. Key energy and operational parameters would be continuously displayed on display screen located on the ground floor.

CARBSE is developing a test facility to enable the testing of TDDs for VT (visible transmittance) and Solar Gain based on International Standards. The visible transmittance (VT) is an optical rating that determines how much light in the visible spectrum is transmitted through a window glazing or other fenestration. The VT measurement of a TDD must accommodate the geometrical complexity of light entering and exiting the device at angles that are more variable than those associated with flat window products. Therefore, an integrating sphere with two meter diameter, also known as Large Diameter Integrating Sphere (LDIS), is used. TDD is mounted on the LDIS and the lux meters placed inside the LDIS measure average distributed non-uniform light that enters the sphere from TDD sample. A single VT result will represent the total transmission integrated over all various output angles for a given solar incidence angle that can be adjusted by the positioning of the LDIS relative to the sun.

A mirror box consists of an extremely bright homogenously lit ceiling and mirrored walls. The light source is a milky white diffusing acrylic sheet illuminated with over 6,000 LEDs behind. The mirrors, arranged vertically all around the periphery of the boxproduces an image of the lit ceiling by reflection and inter-reflection to infinity. The building model to be analysed for daylight performance is placed inside the mirror box and illuminance levels are measured using lux meters to determine daylight factor.

If permitted to grow unchecked, building air-conditioning will add immense pressure on electricity infrastructure and exacerbate the already extreme peak-demand problem in the country. In the absence of an adaptive thermal comfort standard specifically focused on India’s climatic and cultural context, the recent trend in India is to design air-conditioned office buildings (that often operate at 22.5 ± 1 °C all year round) to meet the “Class A” comfort specifications articulated in documents such as ISO 2005 and ASHRAE 55 for air-conditioned buildings. This approach may elevate Indian comfort expectations to levels that require unsustainable energy inputs, without substantially improving overall occupant comfort, satisfaction and productivity.

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Exercise will develop extensive data of thermo-physical-optical property of building materials, building components and construction assemblies. State of the art material testing facilities will be used to characterize materials. Opaque building materials such as clay bricks, gypsum, stones, cement and RCC will be characterized for its thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity, specific heat, density etc. Transparent – translucent materials such as glass, acrylics will be characterized for transmittance, absorptance and reflectance. Subsequent to data base for material, database for construction assemblies such as walls, roofs and components such as windows, skylights and doors will be developed. Online web tool will be developed to facilitate the use of acquired knowledge. This study is an effort initiated by Centre of Excellence in Solar Passive Architecture and Green Building Technology, Centre for Advanced Research in Building Science and Energy (CARBSE) at CEPT University and is supported by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Govt. of India. CARBSE is also partnering with local Indian academic and research institutes to accomplish this exercise.
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Within IGEN, the Climate Smart Buildings (CSB) programme targets to enhance climate resilience and thermal comfort in buildings. It is aligned with the commitments made by the Indian Government to meet its objectives submitted under SDG 11- Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable. The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB), and the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) facilitates the CSB programme.

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The group of master trainings are responsible for training more trainers in various states to aid the implementation and enforcement of Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) and Eco Niwas Samhita (ENS). During the three days if training topics such as Building Envelop systems, HVAC systems, Building Performance Simulation, and case studies of ECBC Compliance were covered. Approximately 60 master trainers participated this training.

This course consists of a range of digital materials in the form of power point slides, case studies, assignments, and teacher’s notes. Designated senior members of the CARBSE worked with IFC resource persons to localize the IFC content to suite Indian context. CARBSE and IFC selected 12 faculty members from six institutes for two ToTs offered during May 2021.

8 days. 50 participants. Faculty consisting of technical experts and soft skill trainers from India and Switzerland