Hybrid ventilation for low energy building design in south China

Buildings and their related activities are responsible for a large portion of the energy consumed in China. It is therefore worthwhile to investigate methods for improving the energy efficiency of buildings. This paper describes a low energy building design in Hangzhou, south China. A hybrid ventilation system which employs both natural and mechanical ventilation was used for the building due to the severity of the climate. The passive ventilation system was tested using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and the results showed that, in the mid-seasons, natural ventilation for the building is viable. The likely thermal performance of the building design throughout the year was evaluated using dynamic thermal simulation (DTS) with local hourly standard weather data. It is evident from the modelling results that the hybrid ventilation system is a feasible, low energy approach for building design, even in sub-tropical climates such as south China.