Design and Performance of Test Cells as an Energy Evaluation Model of Facades in a Mediterranean Building Area

The current European energy policies have an influence on the need to rehabilitate the housing stock in order to meet the objectives of the European Union. Most of this housing stock was built without any type of energy regulation in adverse technical and economic conditions and thus is now energetically obsolete. The major rehabilitation effort required must be approached through actions based on previous quantitative energy knowledge of the existing buildings in order to guarantee the efficiency of energy-retrofitted solutions. This assessment can be carried out through monitoring dwellings conditioned by use patterns; through simulation programs, which do not usually offer faithful representations of energy conditions; or by using test cells, which allow us to evaluate a controlled indoor environment without the influence of users. The objective of this paper is to present the design and performance of test cells as an experimental method for vertical facade analysis in order to tackle the problem of retrofitting residential buildings in a Mediterranean climate, taking into account energy and environment. With this equipment, efficiency and energy savings, as well as illumination and interior air quality, can be simultaneously and comprehensively evaluated.