Resumen

AMIGO VASQUEZ, Jaime R. Save energy in houses of countries with tropical climates. uct [online]. 2006, vol.10, n.40, pp.245-253. ISSN 1316-4821.

This paper presents a method to make technical and economic decisions that will allow to save power, without hindering thermal comfort, in houses located in areas with a tropical climate. A house from Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela, was chosen as a prototype with the following characteristics: Surface built: 180 m2. Dovetail wood roof and tile, and a 5 t air conditioning unit. The diagnose was made with a power simulation program for buildings to determine the cooling loads. Then the electricity consumption was evaluated. Later on, the same program was used to achieve a re-adaptation consisting in adding to the roof 140 mm of thermal isolation and a 12mm thick drywall plate. The results of the simulation indicate that with this re-adaptation, it is possible to reduce in 22,886.42 kW-h/year (48.97%) the electricity consumption, while the electrical bill decreased 2,586,165.46 Bs/year. The cost of the re-adaptation is of Bs 11,944,260.50, so the initial investment is recovered in 4.62 years, being the simple return period of the investment less than the lifetime of the readaptation. Therefore, the re-adaptation is economically viable

Palabras clave : Cooling; Energy Simulation in Buildings; Houses; Power Savings in Houses; Thermal Isolation; Tropical Climate; Tropic.