ABSTRACT
The low energy dwellings at Snekkerstua are part of two major Norwegian research projects. One dwelling is the Norwegian contribution to the lEA’s Solar Heating and Cooling Programme’s Task 13: Advanced Solar Low Energy Buildings. The two other dwellings are part of a national program on product development and experimental buildings. The dwellings are built as a three unit rowhouse at Hamar, close to the town of Lillehammer. It is part of a housing development that was used by media personnel during the 1994 Winter Olympics. The IEA Task 13 experimental dwelling, which is the center unit in the rowhouse, uses superinsulation, superwindows, and high efficiency ventilation air heat recovery to reduce the heating demand to a minimum. The other two units are built according to the new Norwegian building code, to be introduced in 1995.
In the IEA-dwelling, all space and water heating is provided by a heat pump that uses a small su and a ground coil as heat sources. Thus all the energy needs are reduced to electricity only. A grid-coupled photovoltaic system covers part of this load. The auxiliary energy needed is therefore reduced to 33 kWh/m2 year. This is only 15% of that used in a comparable dwelling built according to the existing building code. The two other dwellings use more conventional systems to reduce the energy consumption. The West end unit uses an exhaust air heat pump to cover part of the space and water heating load, and the East end unit uses a solar water collector to cover part of the water heating load.
