IEA EBC Annex 80 generates knowledge in the field of architecture, mechanical engineering, thermodynamics, comfort theory, occupant behaviour and building simulation through international collaboration and national research. Linking the academic realm to practical application is crucial for Annex 80 as well as venticool and the Air Infiltration and Ventilation Centre (AIVC), which seek to establish a format for regular exchange between Annex 80 scientists and practitioners and planners as well as representatives from relevant industries.

On March 24^th & June 9^th, Annex 80 scientists, practitioners, and planners as well as representatives from the building cooling associated industry gathered for two meetings of the Advisory Board of Practitioners. This board, an initiative of Annex 80, AIVC and venticool, was founded to put results of scientific research into action by establishing strong ties to practitioners and to include their practical experience in future research projects.

More than 40 participants attended the kick-off meeting of the Board. A “resilient cooling” survey has also been set up https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/LBQBGJQ  and sent to the participants of the kick off meeting; the first results of the survey were discussed during this first meeting.

The second meeting, with more than 20 participants, dealt with the topic of “resilience as regards cooling (definition and application)”. After three short presentations from annex experts (Chen Zhang- Aalborg University, Shady Attia – University of Liège) and a member of the advisory board (Joost Declerq – Archipelago), the members were split into small groups for a break-out session to discuss the questions listed below, before returning to the main session to share their outcomes.

• How would you define resilient cooling? Do you have concerns about or comments on the definition given?
• Do you agree that heat waves and power outages pose the biggest challenges for resilient cooling technologies? Why, why not? Which other challenges do you see?
• How does the concept of resilience affect your daily work? How does the concept of resilience affect the design of buildings?
• Which threats do you consider the biggest for resilient cooling strategies? Which barriers to increasing resilience in the building sector do you expect in the near future?
• Do you expect professional practices to change in the near future? And if so, how?

 

Manifold opinions have been exchanged as well as learnings from practical experience shared and made available for the other participants. In the plenary, the board reached the conclusion that the importance of resilience will grow steadily. The necessity to consider resiliency from the early stages of implementation of cooling strategies has been agreed upon. Furthermore, it has been concluded that to increase the resilience of building and systems, such concepts need to be disseminated amongst stakeholders, policy makers and practitioners alike.

The next web meetings will be on the following topics:

Meeting 03: September 29^th, 2021

“KPI and metrics of (resilient) cooling”

• Collection and selection of performance indicators
• Indicators of resilience
• Application of KPIs

 

Meeting 04: December 15^th, 2021

“Future weather data for building simulation”

• Generation of future weather data
• Evaluation of extreme heat events
• Application in building simulations

 

For further information, please contact Philipp Stern at philipp.stern@building-research.at