Tiny House Energy Efficiency and Comfort - TH Bingen Research

RESEARCH

At the Technical University of Bingen, the "Tiny House" is being built, a 44-square-metre cube in which students will investigate the energy efficiency and comfort of buildings from October. We spoke to Prof. Dr. Martin Pudlik, who is leading the project in the Regenerative Energy Management and Supply Engineering degree programme together with Prof. Andreas Winkels and PhD student Marvin Uhr.

Professor Pudlik, what exactly is the "Tiny House" for?

We will use it for practice-oriented teaching and research into energy supply in residential and non-residential buildings. There is little reliable data on energy efficiency that takes into account the interaction of the individual components. How do the individual components of heat or cold generation and distribution behave in the system? How can they be used optimally? And how comfortable are the individual systems? Can electricity-grid-serving behaviour of buildings be achieved cost-effectively in the context of sector coupling? These are the questions we want to explore.

We will use it for seminars and at the same time it is part of the practical training. Almost everything was installed by the students themselves. For example, they installed the insulation and mounted the cooling ceiling themselves.

Which components are part of the system concept?

In addition to the cooling ceiling, we also have underfloor heating, an air-water heat pump, a seasonal ice thermal storage system that acts as a medium for the brine heat pump, three small wind turbines, a photovoltaic system and a battery storage system for optional car operation.

How did you come to BEKA?

I already know the chilled ceiling technology from my practice in the TGA office. We were looking for a robust and reliable cooling ceiling that could be installed flexibly. In conversation with Mr. Bauke, we decided on the single pipe technology and were very relieved that BEKA provided us with the materials free of charge.

Thank you very much for the conversation and good luck with the project!