Automation in biopassive housing
A biopassive house is a building that meets all the construction criteria of a Passivhaus while also using natural or sustainable materials with consideration to the environment and people’s wellbeing. The materials must provide a healthy indoor environment, maintain pleasant temperatures and humidity levels, and not emit harmful components into the environment. The term “bio” gives priority to people’s health above all else, meaning the home must be free of toxins, chemicals and radiation of all kinds.
One of the differences between passive and biopassive houses is that biopassive buildings rely on natural ventilation more and make better use of green energies provided by the sun, water, wind and air.
What role does automation play in biopassive housing?
Automation in biopassive homes plays a very important role: it helps to maximise energy efficiency, makes the most of natural energy resources, and achieves exceptional comfort for residents and users. These are essential requirements in biopassive buildings.
The integration of intelligent building automation systems in biopassive homes allows the house to act on its own to optimise all these factors, and to ensure climate control, solar protection and air renewal works in perfect harmony without the need for manual intervention.
The automated management of energy and natural resources is also extremely important for biopassive buildings: it utilises existing green resources to regulate indoor temperatures and uses surplus energy for self-consumption.
Loxone automation also makes it possible to protect the health of occupants by regulating the CO2 levels and the ventilation of the house through an intelligent building management system. The risk of radiation can also be eliminated with the appropriate equipment.
Maximising energy efficiency
The optimal indoor climate can be achieved while keeping the use of additional energy to a minimum if the building management system takes into account the indoor and outdoor temperature of the house, as well as the use of natural resources such as solar energy.
The Loxone system combines the climate control, shading and air renewal functions to achieve the comfort temperature and best air quality in each room, for example, 19°C in the bedroom and 22°C in the living room. This can be done via individual room control. Loxone homes adapt to the habits and activities of the tenants and their presence.
By integrating different heating and cooling sources, the Loxone building management system intelligently activates the right source at the right time, whether ventilation or air renewal alone is sufficient. Combining these features with smart blinds prevents overheating the house in summer and minimises the energy consumption of the cooling system, and allows the sun to warm up the interior of the house in the winter to reduce the amount of power used by the heating system to a minimum.
This is how Loxone intelligent automation achieves the ideal temperature in each room, maximising energy efficiency and providing convenience and comfort for residents.
Renewable energy management
Integrating the solar panels of the biopassive home into the Loxone system is an additional benefit of intelligent building automation. The production and consumption of photovoltaic energy is centrally managed; with excess solar energy redirected to car chargers, or integrated kitchen appliances such as washing machines or dishwashers.
In the case of a domestic hot water buffer tank, the excess photovoltaic energy is used to heat the electrical resistance of the tank. This component is one of the largest energy consumers in a home, so utilising surplus here helps with energy management.
Avoiding radiation and protecting people’s health
The Loxone Air wireless technology integrates climate controls, smart blinds, ventilation systems, and intelligent lighting via radio signals, not Wifi. There is no need for cables with this quick and easy method. The Loxone Air signal works at low frequencies, so the level of radiation compared to other technologies that work at higher frequencies is minimal.
Intelligent lighting can also be integrated in order to reduce energy costs by automatically activating or deactivating the lights according to detected presence and brightness levels. Loxone uses 24VDC dimmable lighting, which means electromagnetic wave emissions caused by 230VAC power supplies are avoided.
The benefits of automation in biopassive housing are endless, and can be applied in the fields of bio architecture and bio construction to create healthier and more sustainable buildings. To learn how the Loxone passive house automation system can optimise the comfort, efficiency and intelligent control of biopassive and passive buildings – and to help keep their value in the long-term – check out our passive house page by clicking the button below.
Interested in Loxone?
Whether you want Loxone installed or you want to start offering your customers Loxone, speak to us about making that happen.