Reducing Operational Energy Consumption in Traditional Buildings through Retrofitting

Abstract

Buildings consume a major chunk of total energy. Operational and Embodied energy are two components through which energy is consumed in a building. For a typical building its operational energy has to be controlled because it is consumed throughout the building’s life. In traditional buildings, energy saving measures were more passive but now days, increasing energy consumption in building requires active measures to be incorporated. Therefore, to prevent buildings from consuming excessive operational energy, retrofitting is done. To incorporate energy saving measures through retrofitting, first these measures have to be checked and analysed. So four buildings from different regions, climates, functions, energy saving features, etc. were compared. The results suggested a few techniques which were more effective than others. Later on these techniques were applied in an existing building through retrofitting and results were recorded. The results revealed that a combination of active and passive techniques can help a traditional building to conserve energy through retrofitting.