GOOD INTENTIONS - ARE THEY ENOUGH TO ACHIEVE GOOD SOLAR BUILDING PERFORMANCE

The Passive Solar Programme (PSP), funded by the UK Department of Trad e and Industry (DTI), has monitored the performance of over 30 passive solar designed buildings. Passive solar design can realise significan t energy and cost savings. To assess the benefits of applying passive solar design within the UK, the PSP established the Energy Performance Assessment project (EPA). The study set out to assess not only energy performance but also the costs and amenity of existing, exemplar, dom estic and nondomestic solar buildings. All the buildings were designed with a deliberate solar intent. However, it was observed that in many instances this intent was only partially achieved; many of the buildi ngs performed below expectations. It was determined that a given desig n intent can be corrupted, partially or totally, by a variety of influ ences resulting from a building's design, construction or operation. T his paper uses the EPA project to highlight a number of issues that ne ed to be considered if a building's intended performance is to be real ised in practice. Suggestions as to how the issues can be circumvented are made.