Your Design Journal entries for this module should highlight:
- the design alternatives that you modeled and tested
- the results of the analyses and how they influenced your thinking about how to move forward
Use text , images, web links, movies... Whatever media works best to express your ideas!
Images of Your 3 Design Proposals
Side-By-Side Comparisons of Your Analysis Results
June 21 Sun hours:
December 21 Sun hours:
Solar Energy Potential:
Wind Speed:
Your Recommendation for the “Best” Design Option
The best option I believe is Option 1. The sun hours are relatively similar across all 3 buildings. In summer all buildings get on average 6+ hours of sun hours on the front side of the building. The back side gets around 2 hours of sun hours in all cases however Option 2 tries to minimize that back area using a more triangular design. The sun hours in December are also pretty similar. All proposals get around 2 to 4 hours of sun hours which is to be expected in Copenhagen.
The other metric used in analysis was the solar energy potential. As option 2 and 3 try to maximize the sun hours while also maintaining the required area metrics, the tradeoff is that the roof area gets smaller (there could probably be a better design that would do both however the sun hours still remain relatively similar). As a result, the yearly solar panel potential is highest for Option 1 in 508000 kWh. A commercial building of this size consumes on average around 750000 kWh yearly (22.5 kWh per sqft yearly). Thus, the potential of Option 1 is more than enough to achieve the goal of 50% of energy coverage while also being enough to store extra energy in onsite batteries for later use.