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Against the background of climate protection and the rising costs of a fossil-fuel-based energy supply, the interest in the energy performance and indoor climate of buildings in real operation is rising. This paper, therefore, deals with the indoor climate investigation of two medium-sized office buildings in Germany by taking measurements over a whole year. These relate to one new building and one refurbished building. Sensors of various types were installed and operated in a large number of office rooms, so that in total results are available for over 100 rooms, typically occupied by one or two persons. The analysis focuses on the indoor temperature in summer and the air quality in winter based on the CO2 concentration. The comfort classes according to DIN EN 16798 including the adaptive comfort approach are used as a basis to cluster the results. Both buildings have movable sun protection and openable windows but no facilities for active cooling. They, thus, represent a large number of existing 'low tech' office buildings in Germany and central Europe. The results reflect the respective building concepts but also show a wide range between the rooms due to the user preferences and behaviour. The refurbished building shows better results, especially in terms of air quality but also in terms of summer room temperatures. This underlines the benefit of the targeted measures as a result of an analysis of the deficits in the existing building before the refurbishment. The additional measures for decentralised mechanical ventilation and passive cooling are having positive effects. As part of the projects, further measures to improve the indoor climate were investigated in both buildings. In one case, this involved CO2 traffic lights to stimulate personal window ventilation in winter, and in the other, the use of newly developed individual ceiling fans supports convective heat dissipation on the human body during hot spells in summer. The positive effect could be demonstrated for both measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: To gain access to information on energy use in office buildings, the German Federal Ministry for Economy launched an intensive research and demonstration programme in 1995. In advance of the 2002 EU energy performance directive a limited primary energy coefficient of about 100kWhm−2 a−1 as a goal for the complete building services technology was postulated (HVAC+lighting) for all demonstration buildings to be supported. A further condition was that active cooling be avoided. Techniques such as natural or mechanical night ventilation or heat removal by slab cooling with vertical ground pipes as well as earth-to-air heat exchangers in the ventilation system were applied. An accompanying research was established to keep track of the results and the lessons learned from about 22 demonstration buildings realized and monitored until the end of 2005. As one outcome this paper summarises the energy performance of a selection of characteristic buildings together with an overview on the summer thermal comfort situations achieved. The research program will proceed during the next five years. Detailed reports and future results may be downloaded from the internet: www.enbau-monitor.de. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]