Three Important factors to make your building sustainable or Green

It is important to take care of various design aspects to make your building green. There are various considerations to make your building sustainable/green.

In this article we are highlighting 3 main considerations which has to be adopted by architects and engineers while designing a green building.

Those considerations are

· Adoption of Energy Efficient Building Materials (Green Building Materials)

                  They have a measurable impact on a structure’s energy efficiency. Creating a tight envelope that protects against the elements while reducing expenditure helps achieve the goal of sustainability.

eg.  Wall with insulation can result into reduction in U-Value thus making it more insulate and separate from outside environment. This helps in the reduction of loads on HVAC system and thus saving electricity and cost as well.

Change in U-Values of wall with implementation of insulation with various thickness is shown below

Windows with lower SHGC values

Effect on the annual energy consumption of a building by adopting glass type having lower SHGC value is shown in the graph below

Apart from these there are numerous green building materials that are extensively used nowadays e.g  Green concrete, wooden bricks, sun roof tiles etc.

·  Use of Solar Energy (Solar Rooftop PV Modules and Solar Heaters etc.)

As we know electricity is the much needed thing in a building. The electricity purchased from the Discom is generated by the burning of fossil fuels. That has a significant role in the carbon emissions that leads damage to the natural environment.

Thus it becomes important to reduce those carbon emissions by adoption of renewable resources on site. Solar is the most efficient renewable energy source as it is available in almost every type of geographical area with suitable insolation.

Generally a 8 KW solar rooftop pv produces 32 KWh of electricity which is adequate to fulfill the needs of a house. The surplus power can be sold to the grid back if not needed Therefore solar energy power plants has their own contribution to achieve sustainability.

· Use of Energy Efficient HVAC System

In order to provide thermal comfort to the occupants of any building the need of HVAC system is essential. Typically about 40-60% of the total energy consumed in any building is by its HVAC alone. Generally a HVAC system’s performance can be analyzed by its COP (Coefficient of Performance. Thus by adopting a suitable and energy efficient HVAC system with higher COP , the energy consumption loads can be minimize leading to the less electricity consumption and bills.

from above graph it is clearly visible that higher values of HVAC system’s COP will decrease the energy consumption.