Abstract

Through establishing a set of criteria systems, green building assessment provides specific and clear regulations for various aspects to guide the practice of green building. As an effective energy-saving measure, the external shading design can play a better role in reducing the transmittance of glass receiving solar radiation, as well as lowering the heat absorbed by the external enclosure structure, to achieve better indoor thermal environment comfort. Hence, the impact of fixed external shading facilities on their thermal and energy-saving performance has been highlighted in the existing research. However, there is a lack of comprehensive assessment methods for this passive energy-saving technique in either scientific research or practical evaluation standards, covering various aspects of energy conservation, economy, and environment. The intention of this study is to assess the impact of fixed external shading designs on energy consumption based on a green educational building project within hot summer and warm winter climate region in China. To fulfil this aim, a case study of a kindergarten building located in Shenzhen and a Chinese local building energy-saving simulation software BESI 2024 have been applied. The energy-saving rate of building envelope has been adopted as assessed criteria. Four types of fixed external shading design have been considered, e.g., horizontal shading, vertical shading, baffle-type shading, and integrated shading. Simulation results generated the best fixed external shading strategy among 21 proposed fixed external shading cases, which is ‘Integrated shading I’ with 6.03% of energy-saving rate of building envelope. This paper not only demonstrates details on how to apply BESI for building energy-saving simulation, but also provides data support for subsequent comprehensive assessment analysis on the best choice of fixed external shading design.