The French demo is in Leers, close suburbs of Lille metropolis, in the north of France. The building is located in a peaceful environment yet very close to the urban area. The location is characterised by low altitude, important rainfalls (763 mm annual mean) and an average temperature of 11 °C, and the climate is classified as oceanic.
The Cultural-E demonstration building is part of a project of 4 residential building, owned by Vilogia (private social housing). Among the other 3 buildings, a “sister” one can serve as reference for comparison during the operational phase.
The project strategy is first of all to minimize the needs as much as possible by an important work on the design of the envelope (level of insulation, maximization of solar gains, thermal bridges treatment, compactness). The production of renewable solar energy is secondly sized to cover all the energy needs for the ‘5 uses’ defined in the French thermal regulations (heating, cooling, domestic hot water, ventilation, lighting) but does not consider domestic energy consumption (plug loads) which does not depend on the design.
