Impact of building envelope design on Auckland public library energy consumption

Abstract

This study investigated impact of building envelope design on energy consumption of Auckland public libraries under local climatic conditions. Energy consumption data and library building envelope design data of the 30 libraries (55% of local library buildings) are used for this study. The study investigated and identified relationships between daily mean energy consumptions per unit volume of library building indoor space (kWh/m3/day) and library building design data such as ratio of building surface to volume. Building design data related to building envelopes were calculated according to building plans of the sample public library buildings. This study converted monthly energy consumption data into annual, winter, heating-months and summer daily mean energy consumptions per unit volume of library building indoor space (kWh/m3/day). This study focuses on impact strength of building envelope design on library annual, winter, heating months and summer mean energy consumptions and identifies quantitative relationships between the building design data and the energy consumption data, which can be used to proximately estimate the amount of saving energy consumption associated with the change of a design datum for the future library building development. This study also identified some design issues related to energy efficiency of local library building design.