Earth Air Heat Exchanger, Trombe Wall and Green Wall for Passive Heating and Cooling in Premium Passive Refugee House in Sweden

With the increasing number of migrants and refugees, there is a need for energy-efficient and low impact temporary housing that can accommodate millions of displaced peoples worldwide. This study describes a design proposal for a premium passive refugee house that uses three main passive heating and cooling solutions (Earth Air Heat Exchanger, Trombe wall, and green wall) and is suited to the Swedish climate. The purpose of the combination of the three passive systems is to reduce cooling and heating loads to conserve a significant amount of primary energy and thus mitigate the impact of the house's energy use on the environment through a reduction in emissions. The house is designed to fulfill its energy needs from renewable sources and produce an annual surplus of 180 kWh/m ²/annum. The methodology applied is a dynamic system modeling and simulation approach using TRNSYS and ANSYS software. The simulation results showed a heating load of 7.9 kWh/m ²/annum and a cooling load of 2.8 kWh/m ²/annum, with total energy consumption reaching 18.4 kWh/m ²/annum. Preliminary feasibility costing showed a payback time of 7.4 years out of the 25-years suggested lifetime of building using the three passive solutions. The amount of CO ₂ emissions is 231.1 kg CO ₂e/annum with a primary energy demand of 0.032 GJ/m ²/annum. As a follow-up to the initial study, a proof of concept has been implemented in Lund, Sweden, in an urban living lab to verify the simulation results through a 12-month post-occupancy monitoring and evaluation study.