Investigation of the passive house concept in energy efficient building design and its applicability in komotini climate zone

The activities carried out by humanity since the day it existed on earth have had direct effects on nature and the environment. Increasing energy consumption with the development of civilization has brought environmental problems. In this process, discussions on sustainable development and environment issues have increased significantly since the 20th century. The same discussions have also come to the fore in the building sector, which has a significant share in energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, and have resulted in the emergence of various concepts such as energy efficient building design, sustainable buildings and ecological architecture. Considering that buildings consume a large amount of energy globally, the principles of energy efficiency and saving have become even more important. As a result of efforts to ensure energy conservation by designing buildings in harmony with the environment and climate, various energy efficient building design standards have been introduced and certification systems have been developed to make their effectiveness measurable. One of these standards is the Passive House standards, which were introduced in 1988. Passive House standards provide energy conservation and provide high energy savings with elements such as qualified thermal insulation, windows with low thermal permeability coefficient, reducing the air tightness coefficient, reducing thermal bridges and controlled ventilation. In this study, a literature research was conducted on energy and energy efficient building design and the Passive House standard, which is one of the energy efficient building design certifications, and the applicability of these standards in Komotini, located in the temperate-humid climate region, was discussed. In this context, a test base model was designed with construction techniques and materials commonly used in Komotini and throughout Greece, and the energy performance of the model was tested with the Energy Plus-based Design Builder v7 simulation program. Afterwards, the five basic criteria of Passive House were integrated into the model and their effects on energy performance were examined. In line with the data obtained, it was analyzed whether integrating these criteria into the model was sufficient to meet the standards set by the Passive House Institute.