On 14-15 March 2017, students of architecture at Chulalongkorn University attended a second workshop on Nexus Plus Energy Buildings organized by GIZ Nexus Project in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Germany, and Chulalongkorn University.

Focusing on water, energy and food security, the GIZ Urban Nexus Project recognizes the importance of housing in Asia. A home, where people live, is the concentration of the resource consumption – especially energy, and GIZ Nexus sees an opportunity to introduce the ambitious yet feasible concept of “Plus Energy Buildings/Houses” to Southeast Asia. A Plus Energy Building is a building which is able to produce more energy than it consumes. Economically, a Plus Energy Building will not only reduce the operation cost of the building itself, but will also provide the property owner with potential revenue through the sales of electricity to the main grid once this is again allowed in Thailand.

Following up on the success of the first training session, a second workshop was organized on 14th-15th March 2017 and attended by 30 students of architecture. It focused on the practical work of designing and simulating a Plus Energy Building. The students were given a theoretical and practical introduction on how to modify an existing building design. Fraunhofer ISE provided the theoretical part while Mr. Martin Schoch from Unexpected Co., a Thai architectural consultant, elaborated on the actual design modification and energy simulation of a Health Care Center in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The students were provided with the current row house design of the National Housing Authority Thailand and worked in groups to modify the design using both passive and active measures. Subsequently, the students were trained in how to use simulation software to determine the actual energy savings and the extra construction cost needed to implement their proposed measures.