Mrs Shanti Srinivas

While working as an intern with Auroville Consulting in Auroville, India, I became interested in building energy modelling. I used SketchUp, OpenStudio, and EnergyPlus to find an appropriate combination of building components to optimise the energy demand, thermal comfort, and natural daylighting of the concept design of a campus in Auroville.

This PhD with the ERBE CDT is a perfect opportunity for me to combine my interests to lower the energy demand and improve the thermal comfort of existing buildings using passive measures and using natural materials with low embodied energy. My research aims to reduce energy demand in homes in India by improving thermal comfort using passive measures that regulate temperature and relative humidity. I am using DesignBuilder and WUFI Plus to model and run whole building simulations of the heat and moisture balance in buildings and Python for data analysis.  

Current research activity

PhD student – ERBE CDT – Evaluation of passive air conditioning strategies to reduce energy demand in Indian residences.

My interest in the sustainable retrofit of existing buildings and in the embodied energy of building materials was developed during my MSc at the Centre for Alternative Technology in 2019, plus my six months internship in Auroville, working to optimise the concept design of a campus in Auroville. The experience I gained using building energy simulation software during this time was invaluable. I am particularly interested in improving thermal comfort in existing homes using passive measures to reduce their energy demand.