Assessing the Effect of Microclimate on Building Energy Performance by Co-Simulation

2011 ◽  
Vol 121-126 ◽  
pp. 2860-2867 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiao Shan Yang ◽  
Li Hua Zhao ◽  
Michael Bruse ◽  
Qing Lin Meng
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Quantitative Assessment ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Outdoor Air ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Building Energy Performance

To provide a more accurate prediction of building energy consumption, it is necessary to take into account the influence of the microclimate around a building establishing through the interaction with other buildings or the natural environment. This paper presents a method for the quantitative assessment of building performance under any given urban context by linking the urban microclimate model ENVI-met to the building energy simulation (BES) program EnergyPlus. The full microclimatic factors such as solar radiation, thermal radiation, outdoor air temperature, humidity, and wind speed have been considered in the proposed scheme. The method outlined in this paper could be useful for urban and building optimal design.

scholarly journals Influence of Lightweight Aggregate Concrete Materials on Building Energy Performance

Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 94
Author(s):  
Tara L. Cavalline ◽  
Jorge Gallegos ◽  
Reid W. Castrodale ◽  
Charles Freeman ◽  
Jerry Liner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Properties ◽  
Building Materials ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Lightweight Concrete ◽  
Lightweight Aggregate ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Energy Performance

Due to their porous nature, lightweight aggregates have been shown to exhibit thermal properties that are advantageous when used in building materials such as lightweight concrete, grout, mortar, and concrete masonry units. Limited data exist on the thermal properties of materials that incorporate lightweight aggregate where the pore system has not been altered, and very few studies have been performed to quantify the building energy performance of structures constructed using lightweight building materials in commonly utilized structural and building envelope components. In this study, several lightweight concrete and masonry building materials were tested to determine the thermal properties of the bulk materials, providing more accurate inputs to building energy simulation than have previously been used. These properties were used in EnergyPlus building energy simulation models for several types of commercial structures for which materials containing lightweight aggregates are an alternative commonly considered for economic and aesthetic reasons. In a simple model, use of sand lightweight concrete resulted in prediction of 15–17% heating energy savings and 10% cooling energy savings, while use of all lightweight concrete resulted in prediction of approximately 35–40% heating energy savings and 30% cooling energy savings. In more complex EnergyPlus reference models, results indicated superior thermal performance of lightweight aggregate building materials in 48 of 50 building energy simulations. Predicted energy savings for the five models ranged from 0.2% to 6.4%.

Building Energy Simulation for LEED Qualification on a Commercial Building in China

2012 ◽  
Vol 193-194 ◽  
pp. 258-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ching Hin Law ◽  
Jian Kun Yang ◽  
Xiang Yang Jiang
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Cost ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Commercial Building ◽  
Simulation Process

This research introduced and implemented building energy simulation via a case study of a commercial project in China, by considering the green features which can reduce the annual energy consumption of this building. This simulation process was based on the requirement described within LEED EA c1 Optimize Energy Performance. The result concluded that more than 39.41% of energy cost was reduced and thus the project can obtain 16 points from this credit.

Exploring and verifying BIM-based energy simulation for building operations

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (8) ◽  
pp. 1679-1702
Author(s):  
Hong Xian Li ◽  
Zhiliang Ma ◽  
Hexu Liu ◽  
Jun Wang ◽  
Mohamed Al-Hussein ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Information Modeling ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Simulation Tools ◽  
Building Information ◽  
Simulation Results

PurposeThe operational phase of a building's lifecycle is receiving increasing attention, as it consumes an enormous amount of energy and results in tremendous detrimental impacts on the environment. While energy simulation can be applied as a tool to evaluate the energy performance of a building in operation, the emergence of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology is expected to facilitate the evaluation process with predefined and enriched building information. However, such an approach has been confronted by the challenge of interoperability issues among the related application software, including the BIM tools and energy simulation tools, and the results of simulation have been seldom verified due to the unavailability of corresponding experimental data. This study aims to explore the interoperability between the commonly used energy simulation and BIM tools and verifies the simulation approach by undertaking a case study.Design/methodology/approachWith Autodesk Revit and EnergyPlus selected as the commonly used BIM and energy simulation tools, respectively, a valid technical framework of transferring building information between two tools is proposed, and the interoperability issues that occur during the data transfer are studied. The proposed framework is then employed to simulate the energy consumption of a single-family house, and sensitivity analysis and analysis on such parameters as schedule are conducted for building operations to showcase its applicability.FindingsThe simulation results are compared with monitored data and the results from another simulation tool, HOT2000; the comparison reveals that EnergyPlus and HOT2000 predict the total energy consumption with a difference from the monitoring data of 8.0 and 7.1%, respectively.Practical implicationsThis research shows how to efficiently use BIM to support building energy simulation. Relevant stakeholders can learn from this research to avoid data loss during BIM model transformation.Originality/valueThis research explores the application of BIM for building energy simulation, compares the simulation results among different tools and validates simulation results using monitored data.

scholarly journals Modelling of a Variable Refrigerant Flow System in EnergyPlus for Building Energy Simulation in an Open Building Information Modelling Environment

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bárbara Torregrosa-Jaime ◽  
Pedro J. Martínez ◽  
Benjamín González ◽  
Gaspar Payá-Ballester
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Department Of Energy ◽  
Office Building ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Information Modelling ◽  
Information Modelling ◽  
Building Information

Variable refrigerant flow (VRF) systems are one possible tool to meet the objective that all new buildings must be nearly zero-energy buildings by 31 December 2020. Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a methodology that centralizes building construction project information in a digital model promoting collaboration between all its agents. The objectives of this work were to develop a more precise model of the VRF system than the one available in EnergyPlus version 8.9 (US Department of Energy) and to study the operation of this system in an office building under different climates by implementing the building energy simulation in an Open BIM workflow. The percentage deviation between the estimation of the VRF energy consumption with the standard and the new model was 6.91% and 1.59% for cooling and heating respectively in the case of Barcelona and 3.27% and 0.97% respectively in the case of Madrid. The energy performance class of the analysed building was A for each climatic zone. The primary energy consumption of the office building equipped with the VRF system was of 65.8 kWh/(m2·y) for the Mediterranean climate of Barcelona and 72.4 kWh/(m2·y) for the Continental climate of Madrid.

scholarly journals Research on the Influence of Abrupt Climate Changes on the Analysis of Typical Meteorological Year in China

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 6531
Author(s):  
Xinying Fan ◽  
Bin Chen ◽  
Changfeng Fu ◽  
Lingyun Li
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Climate Changes ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Test Method ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Building Energy Performance ◽  
Analysis And Design ◽  
Performance Analysis And Design ◽  
Chinese Standard

The conventional typical meteorological year (TMY) based on continuous-year original meteorological records without considering abrupt climate changes (ACC) may not be able to represent a real “typical” climate properly. Consequently, building performance analyses and simulations based on TMY may be not accurate. Current research rarely tackles this issue in TMY development. This paper presents an innovative TMY development with the consideration of ACC in the original meteorological records. It is based on the Chinese standard weather database method (CSWD) with the meteorological records of six Chinese cities in different climate zones. It applies the Moving t-test method to identify and exclude ACC points and to refine the timescales for TMY development. It also depicts the development of individual typical meteorological months again with the ACC impact to improve the accuracy of TMY. The method has been verified in several building energy consumption and thermal comfort analyses. The results demonstrate that the analysis based on the new TMY climate datasets when considering ACC will end up with less energy consumption and better thermal performance compared to the analyses based on the conversion dataset without considering ACC. This experimental research will refine TMY development, and further improve building energy performance analysis and design.

A Multi-Zone Building Energy Simulation of a Data Center Model With Hot and Cold Aisles

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Long Phan ◽  
Cheng-Xian Lin ◽  
Mirko Schäfer
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Boundary Conditions ◽  
Data Center ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Simulation Code ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Wall Boundary ◽  
Wall Boundary Conditions

In this paper, a building energy simulation code, EnergyPlus, was used to study selected important conditions, i.e. wall boundary conditions and locations, which potentially affect the energy consumption and thermal management of a popular data center model. The data center model having 1120 servers distributed in four rows of rack was investigated under two major climate conditions — hot and humid (Miami, FL), and cool and humid (Chicago, IL), and under five different wall boundary conditions. The data center model was first simulated under a well-mixed single-zone condition as a baseline. Then, a multi-zone approach was proposed to resolve the hot and cold aisles and used to investigate the data center performance. Both monthly and annual overall energy consumption as well as cooling load reports were analyzed and compared among various boundary conditions. In addition, monthly thermal behavior of hot and cold aisle zones within the data center was analyzed. The simulation results show that thermal performance of the data center is significantly affected by locations or climate conditions. The effects of location and wall boundary conditions are particularly appreciable during the summer and winter seasons.

Building performance in the context of industry pressures

2014 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 527-543
Author(s):  
Craig Robertson ◽  
Dejan Mumovic
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Performance Assessment ◽  
Energy Gap ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Actual Performance ◽  
Content Type

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the relationship between designed and actual building performance as represented in an Royal Institute of British Architects- and Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers-backed web-based comparison platform and the industry perception of the pressures surrounding building performance assessment. European directives and UK Parliamentary Acts have resulted in a range of mechanisms aimed at encouraging monitoring of energy consumption, responsive management and evidence-based design. Web-based feedback platforms aim to feed evaluation data back to industry anonymously; however, there exists a range of barriers and disincentives that prevent widespread and habitual engagement with building evaluation. Design/methodology/approach – Using energy data from the CarbonBuzzweb platform and a series of semi-structured interviews, a mixed-methods study has been carried out. Analysis of the characteristics of the existing energy discrepancy between designed and actual performance shows where variance typically occurs. Interviews with industry actors presents a synopsis of the perceived and actual legislative and procedural pressures that exist in relation to building performance assessment. Findings – The conclusions of this paper identify weaknesses in the current legislative and incentivisation mechanisms with regard to targeting building energy performance and industrial pressures that hinder broader industry engagement with post-occupancy evaluation. Originality/value – The recommendations arising from this study are for adjustments to the existing legislative framework to increase participation in meaningful building energy evaluation targeted at the specifics of the energy gap and the motivations of industrial actors. This will specifically help to reduce building energy consumption and associated carbon emissions.

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