## 6 Conclusions and Future Work  
The present work has addressed the implementation and monitoring, at a real-scale relevant environment, of indoor wall coating elements for lightweight constructions based on two thermally-enhanced mortars with incorporation of PCMs with different operating temperature ranges. The conducted research enabled the validation of the passive thermal regulation effects provided by these solutions, reducing the indoor thermal fluctuations as well as the energy use of related conditioning equipment. The following conclusions can be derived from this work: \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline \multirow{2}{*}{**Date**} & **Energy Use in** & **Energy Use in** & \multirow{2}{*}{**Energy Savings (\%)**} \\  & **DEMO1 (kWh)** & & \\ \hline November-2020 & 79.61 & 74.03 & 7.01\% \\ December-2020 & 40.93 & 35.02 & 14.43\% \\ January-2021 & 58.03 & 53.94 & 7.05\% \\ February-2021 & 56.42 & 54.69 & 3.07\% \\ March-2021 & 68.06 & 64.84 & 4.73\% \\ April-2021 & 48.07 & 42.33 & 11.94\% \\ May-2021 & 44.87 & 42.71 & 4.81\% \\ June-2021 & 25.67 & 19.99 & 22.14\% \\ August-2021 & 28.50 & 23.28 & 18.32\% \\ September-2021 & 17.45 & 9.17 & 47.47\% \\ October-2021 & 32.20 & 27.51 & 14.57\% \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Energy use in each test cell during the testing period with CodaTherm-based panels. * The monitoring results revealed a reduction in indoor thermal fluctuations with significant expression during summer and shoulder seasons. The selected PCM configurations contribute to reducing indoor temperature peaks by 1-2 \({}^{\circ}\)C in such periods. * Due to the selected PCM phase change temperatures (close to the higher limit of the thermal comfort zone), the impact of the two PCM-containing mortars on the indoor thermal behavior under free-floating mode operation remained unnoticed during the winter season. * A 5-10% reduction on the energy consumption of the air-conditioning equipment was observed during the monitoring campaign. * This trend was observed both during winter and summer months under controlled-temperature (conditioned mode) operation because the targeted indoor comfort conditions intersected the phase change range of the selected PCMs and triggered their partial activation (which did not happen under free-floating temperature mode). Therefore, based on the results of the conducted monitoring campaign, it can be stated that the incorporation of the selected PCMs (with phase change ranges close to the indoor comfort zone) in thermally-enhanced mortars for internal wall coating solutions is a promising strategy capable of reducing temperature fluctuations and triggering 5-10% energy savings for conditioning systems in lightweight constructions. Future research is nevertheless needed in order to extrapolate these results to other materials (i.e., mixtures of construction mortars and microencapsulated PCMs) and constructive solutions, thus also addressing the design optimization for different building environments. In this sense, further studies with different quantities of PCMs must be faced to understand the potential for multiplying those impacts hereby demonstrated and elaborate cost-benefit analyses that will contribute to the referred design optimization. Moreover, studies on durability and ageing of the proposed PCM-based boards, as well as further investigation of alternative constructive assemblies for the application of the PCM-containing mortars are relevant topics for future research work. Conceptualization, M.A., V.M.F., L.A.B. ; methodology, R.V., L.A.B., F.M., J.S. ; software, J.L.H., A.C.; validation, M.A., L.A.B. ; formal analysis, J.L.H., L.A.B. ; investigation, A.C., J.S., F.M. ; resources, F.R., A.F. ; data curation, J.L.H. ; writing--original draft preparation, M.A., J.L.H., L.A.B. ; writing--review and editing, V.M.F., R.V., F.R., A.F. ; visualization, J.L.H. ; supervision, V.M.F., L.A.B., M.A. ; project administration, L.A.B. ; funding acquisition, M.A., L.A.B., V.M.F., R.V.