Investigating and analysing the energy and environmental performance of an experimental green roof system installed in a nursery school building in Athens, Greece

This paper deals with the experimental investigation and analysis of the energy and environmental performance of a green roof system installed in a nursery school building in Athens. The investigation was implemented in two phases. During the first phase, an experimental investigation of the green roof system efficiency was presented and analysed, while in the second one the energy savings was examined through a mathematical approach by calculating both the cooling and heating load for the summer and winter period for the whole building as well as for its top floor. The energy performance evaluation showed a significant reduction of the building's cooling load during summer. This reduction varied for the whole building in the range of 6–49% and for its last floor in the range of 12–87%. Moreover, the influence of the green roof system in the building's heating load was found insignificant, and this can be regarded a great advantage of the system as any interference in the building shell for the reduction of cooling load leads usually to the increase of its heating load.