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In Central and Northern Europe several thousands homes conform to the Passivhaus standard havebeen built. The applicability of this Standard has not yet been sufficiently tested in warmer climates,where reducing cooling needs under growing summer comfort requirements poses a challenge.The IEE Passive-on project has drafted a proposal to adapt the Standard to the conditions thatcharacterize Southern Europe.

Office buildings in central Chile normally show higher cooling than heating energy demand.Overheating is a frequent problem in this type of buildings in cities like Valparaso and Santiago.Santiago (33S) presents a Mediterranean climate, with a high thermal temperature oscillationbetween day and night throughout the year. Valparaso -with a temperate climate influenced by thePacific Ocean- shows lower temperature compared with Santiago.

Passive cooling of buildings is one of the energy-saving measures that can be employed in climateswith predominantly sensible cooling loads. There are several passive cooling techniques that can be used in buildings; among them night-time ventilation. Night-time ventilation cooling utilizes diurnalswing of outdoor temperature and it has been used in many buildings. However, this passive coolingtechnique only works well when a building has a sufficient thermal mass.

Differences might arise between the design and the real load of ventilation systems during operation.Consequently, the fresh air demand usually varies over a wide range. In normal usage, different types of gaseous contaminants enter the air that might be hazardous to health. The constant inhalation of contaminated indoor air might lead to discomfort or to harmful physiological effects.The difference between the design and the real load can be diminished by augmenting the ventilation system with appropriate components and controls.

The paper provides the results of monitoring on the specifics of indoor air quality in Latvian dwellingbuildings. It will present the results of the evaluation of the ventilation systems operation in differentworking regimes in Latvian climatic conditions.Until the end of 90-ties all dwelling buildings in Latvia were equipped with mandatory naturalventilation systems with stack effect.

The paper is devoted to the analysis of possibility for construction of low energy buildings withenvelopes controlled for minimization of energy consumption by air conditioning systems. It describes the possibilities to reduce energy consumption of large public buildings mainly in summer time when there are the highest electricity demands for cooling. The paper proposes constructive suggestion to create buildings whose walls, roofs and glassed surfaces have changeable thermal characteristics and methodology of control for separate elements.

The paper presents the results and analysis of the energy consumption of a newly designed office building in relation to quality of the indoor environment. The main energy consuming process in such a type of buildings is air-conditioning and cooling. The building was designed as a low-energy one, cooled by means of cooling ceilings. The architects and designers assumptions were checked by numerical simulation applying ESP-r software. Basing on the simulation results, the seasonal energy consumption was analyzed for different strategies of cooling.

The Annex 46, within the IEA ECBCS programme, is meant to influence the decision making processin the retrofit of public and governmental buildings that determines the use of energy-saving measures in building retrofits. This decision making process must improve, if it is to successfully cope with the challenges of increasing energy costs and climate change, and if it is to avoid "locking in" long-term commitment to energy inefficiencies by adopting sub-optimal renovations.

Ventilation in schools is very important as it has a direct relation to health and performance of pupils.The status quo of school ventilation in the Netherlands is presented: lots of problems and insufficientsituations were found. Different aspects of the problems were studied to find new solutions.A new Integral Design approach was developed to design adequate solutions for ventilation of school buildings.

In schools the temperature of the indoor air is one of the most important factors in terms of the indoorclimate. The resulting indoor air temperature is depending on many factors; the temperature of thesupply air being one of the more significant one. One fan-assisted natural ventilation system includesa supply air system where the outdoor air should be passively heated respectively cooled when passing components in the ground before it is supplied to the classrooms. The objective is to examine the ability of the supply system to transfer heat to/from the outdoor air.