| Ulaanbaatar,the capital of Mongolia,is located in a harsh continental climate region with four seasons.Hence,building thermal energy consumption is very high.The buildings located in Ulaanbaatar are supplied from central heating system for 9 months each year,from September 15 to May 15.When the outdoor temperature is-39℃,internal temperature of+15℃-+22℃ must be maintained to meet the demands of its residents providing comfort of living and working.This requirement is generic to all buildings without exemption to all,despite of their location,design,size,purpose,newly built or old condition.The research aims to determine simple but essential requirements that make a building energy efficient which is true to both new and existing buildings in Ulaanbaatar.Also,we aim to look for the answer to the question whether a glass facade building can be classified as energy-efficient?Chapter 1 provides introduction to the topic and background information,and Chapter 2 explores the concept of energy efficiency,determination of energy loss,energy efficient technology and concerns of energy efficient building design.Chapter 3 investigates current level of energy efficiency levels of buildings in Ulaanbaatar and provides comparative analysis on thermal energy consumption of energy efficient buildings with regular buildings and concludes with recommendations.Moreover,a comparative study was carried out on thermal energy efficiency level of newly built buildings with glass facade in Ulaanbaatar,and causes behind why these buildings have higher or lower energy efficiency.Glass facade buildings located in the city center were selected as the objects of the study and an attempt was made to find out where do they fall behind compared to their counterparts in more developed parts of the world.Although my research work topic is an analysis of the design of the glass facade buildings,as a heating engineer,I tried to determine the causes of energy loss of 1077 precast concrete panel buildings built before 1990s with a high energy loss,which is one of the most common residential apartments in Ulaanbaatar and proposed that it is crucial to reduce their energy loss level.During the course of the study,on spot measurements were carried out on the heat meters at the thermal nodes of buildings in sub-districts with high concentration of prefabricated panel buildings to determine their actual consumption of thermal energy,and how much energy consumption is higher than the required level,and thermal imaging inspection was carried out to determine which sections of the building have higher levels of heat loss.A calculation and simulation made basing on the findings of these inspections and measurements on which improvements to reduce energy loss of these buildings would have the most economic and technical benefits is included in the case study section of the next chapter.Another issue discussed in this chapter is the study of the policy on energy efficiency in developed countries.There are several projects implemented in our country,but survey reports on the project implementation are limited by brief summary of the actions taken within the energy conservation projects.Chapter 4 consists of two case studies.This has been carried in line with the previous chapter,estimating energy consumption of a newly planned building design with 70 percent of the overall envelope or four side walls of the building consist of glass facade.Furthermore,in order to cut down the thermal energy consumption of the building,an estimate was made in a scenario where glass facade area is reduced in the north which is not exposed to sunlight and the result shows that the energy consumption can be decreased by 46 percent compared to the original estimate.Case Study 2 in this chapter is a simulation of a 5-storey prefab building in Ulaanbaatar to explore how its energy efficiency can be improved. |
