Refurbishing Houses to Improve Energy Efficiency-Potential in Vietnam

The housing stock in Vietnam faces the challenge of becoming sustainable,provide a healthy living environment and reduce its energy consumption. The challenge lies not only in new buildings but also in existing houses. Nevertheless, little is known whether the new tube houses, the most dominant housing typology in Vietnam, can be renovated to offer adequate living conditions for the occupants, can tackle the issue of energy shortage, and can adapt to climate change. This paper introduces the potential of refurbishment design for energy efficiency. Although both passive and active approaches are encouraged, traditional bioclimatic design strategies, including solar control, natural ventilation and thermal insulation,are more popular because of their low cost and high efficiency. This paper concludes that solar energy has large potential in Vietnam because it can be used passively in sun space or actively in photovoltaics and solar thermal collectors. However, as these refurbishment measures require investments and careful design, the actual benefit in Vietnamese context has not yet been verified.