Adjacent building shading effect on the energy performance of a non-residential building for climatic conditions in Serbia

Abstract

In this paper, the impact of the presence of surrounding buildings on the energy behavior of a non-residential building for climatic conditions in Serbia was examined. For the first time, this impact was considered for different people occupancy schedules, real, average yearly and maximum occupancy, and two different ventilation methods (Method 1 and 3), defined according to the currently valid standard EN 16798. The findings of this study indicate that the predicted total heating energy demands of a building may be significantly affected due to the shading caused by adjacent objects. Through building energy simulations, it was found that a building with a shading effect consumes from 6.43% to 11% more energy than a building where the presence of surrounding buildings is neglected. Neglecting this impact leads to an error in predicting the building's energy consumption. Observing the simultaneous impact of the people occupancy and surrounding objects, this error can reach a value of as much as 21.13%. Based on the presented results, in order to bring the predicted energy behavior of the building closer to its actual behavior, it is recommended to use the real occupancy schedule. The maximum occupancy schedule, in any case, should be avoided. For the same reason, the adjacent shading effect needs to be accounted for in building energy simulation studies. This effect should be also taken into consideration when planning and developing a new urban settlements.