Carbon Designer 3D | Reference Building

Buildings Assessments LEED
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1

Hello,

I am performing a Whole-Building Life-Cycle Assessment for an office building in Portugal.

What reference building option is more suitable for the baseline building:

a) International reference building v2022.1;
b) Italian and South European reference building v2022.1;
c) Spanish (Climate Zone C) reference building v2022.1;
d) Other.

Thanks in advance for your insights.

2

Hi João,

That’s a good question, as of today we do not have a specific reference building for Portugal. We create reference buildings in cooperation with local experts and start the development of such if there is enough interest.

Based on my understanding of the Spanish climate zones and limited understanding of construction in Portugal, zone C could work for your purposes.

From the documentation on the climate zone C U-values, I can see that these are the suggested average values:

  • Walls and floors in contact with outside air, UM, US - 0.29
  • Roofs in contact with the outside air, UC - 0.23
  • Elements in contact with non-habitable spaces or with the ground, UT - 0.48
  • Openings (set of frame, glass, and, if applicable, shutter box), UH - 2.00

If those match construction practices in Portugal, then you could use those. The scaling works so that the Spanish A-zones have generally higher U-values, and the E-zones are on a lower scale.

Hope this is useful!

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