Heating, cooling, ventilation, every building has to work hard to make its guests feel comfortable.

Not only at home, but also in the office.

The energy required for this is of course high, especially in older houses, and renovation costs a lot of money and time.

Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institutes for Building Physics and for Energy Management and Energy System Technology have therefore developed facade modules in which more environmentally friendly energy technology is already firmly integrated.

It should make renovations easier and faster - "minimally invasive", as the researchers say.

Anna-Lena Niemann

Editor in business.

  • Follow I follow

In doing so, they initially have a very specific type of building in mind: the many German office buildings from the 1950s to 1970s.

The scientists put their annual energy consumption at 3200 GWh, but expect that this could be reduced to 600 GWh with their modular facade.

Thanks to their typical skeleton construction - with reinforced concrete supports instead of load-bearing walls - the old facade can be removed comparatively easily and the new modules put on in their place from the outside, without having to tear open the walls or lay pipes or cables.

The individual facade modules are also prefabricated. They therefore fit in with the approach of serial construction, which aims to bring a large part of the production from the construction site to the factory. Proponents of this method hope that this will save time and ultimately costs. 

Each of the modules from the Fraunhofer laboratory is storey high, 1.25 meters wide, 30 centimeters deep and capable of supplying a 24 square meter room with the necessary energy technology. Outside, a solar module first procures the energy and supplies the integrated heat pump with electricity. However, each element also has a power connection. After all, the building services should not be paralyzed in shady times. The engineers installed a fan coil unit in an air gap behind the solar module, through which the heat is released into the room. Individually controllable flaps also regulate the ventilation of the rooms. In winter, the office can be heated via the facade, in summer the system technology reverses the cycle and cools the rooms.

The demonstrator is standing.

Now it has to show how its components work together.

And whether the energy balance keeps what it promises.