Ventilated Active Façades to Reduce the Cooling Demand of Office Buildings - the Case of Spain

This paper analyses the energy efficiency of a Ventilated Active Façade (VAF) applied to office buildings in Spain in comparison with conventional façades that comply with the minimum energy requirements of the Spanish Technical Building Regulation (Código Técnico de la Edificación - CTE). The analysis considers the climatic diversity of the 12 climatic zones of Spain. The studied VAF consists of an outer layer element of 2 mm galvanized steel panels and a 3 cm air cavity through which the ventilation air is preheated in winter and exhausted in summer. After defining 8 typical office typologies in Spain, 192 study cases are obtained where different parameters including the percentage of glass in the façade, and the orientation and the climatic zone of the buildings were considered. The energy demand of all these study cases was obtained using the official simulation tool of the CTE called LIDER.