The Executive Committee of the International Energy Agency Energy in Buildings and Communities Programme (IEA ECB) accepted the formation of a new IEA EBC Annex on Ventilative Cooling at their last meeting in November 2012. This new Annex 62 is given a one year preparation phase which, if successful, will continue in a four year working and reporting phase from 2014 – 2017. During the preparation phase two workshops will be arranged to define and focus the Annex’s objectives, feasibility, methodology, and deliverables in detail. The 1st Annex 62 Preparation Meeting was held March 21 – 22 in the BBRI offices, Brussels, Belgium and the 2nd Preparation meeting will be held in Athens, September 23-24, 2013.

In order to address the cooling challenges of buildings the research focus of the annex will be on development of design methods and compliance tools related to predicting, evaluating and eliminating the cooling need and the risk of overheating in buildings and to develop new attractive energy efficient ventilative cooling solutions.

Annex 62 will be divided in three subtasks. Subtask A “Methods and Tools” will analyse, develop and evaluate suitable design methods and tools for prediction of cooling need, ventilative cooling performance and risk of overheating in buildings. The subtask will also give guidelines for integration of ventilative cooling in energy performance calculation methods and regulation including specification and verification of key performance indicators. Subtask B “Solutions” will investigate the cooling performance of existing mechanical, natural and hybrid ventilation systems and technologies and typical comfort control solutions as a starting point for extending the boundaries for their use. Based upon these investigations the subtask will also develop recommendations for new kinds of flexible and reliable ventilative cooling solutions that can create comfort under a wide range of climatic conditions. Subtask C “Case studies” will demonstrate the performance of ventilative cooling through analysis and evaluation of well-documented case studies.

EBC Annex 62 will include the participation of approximately 15 countries from Europe, Japan and the US, from universities, research centers and manufacturers and suppliers of ventilation equipment. At the first preparation meeting the focus, research objectives and research methodology was determined. The second and final preparation meeting in September will focus on the development of a detailed work plan for the research to be carried out on Ventilative Cooling from 2014-2017.

Please contact Professor Per Heiselberg (e-mail ph@civil.aau.dk), Aalborg University, Denmark for further information.