Single Zonal Building Energy Modelling and Simulation

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a review of the implications building information modelling (BIM) is having on the building energy modelling (BEM) and design of buildings. It addresses the issues surrounding exchange of information throughout the design process, and where BIM may be useful in contributing to effective design progression and information availability. Design/methodology/approach Through review of current design procedures and examination of the concurrency between architectural and thermophysical design modelling, a procedure for information generation relevant to design stakeholders is created, and applied to a high-performance building project currently under development. Findings The extents of information key to the successful design of a buildings energy performance in relation to its architectural objectives are given, with indication of the level of development required at each stage of the design process. Practical implications BIM offers an extensible medium for parametric information storage, and its implementation in design development offers the capability to include BEM parameter-integrated construction information. The extent of information required for accurate BEM at stages of a building’s design is key to understanding how best to record performance information in a BIM environment. Originality/value This paper contributes to the discussion around the integration of concurrent design procedures and a common data environment. It presents a framework for the creation and dissemination of information during design, exemplifies this on a real building project and evaluates the barriers experienced in successful implementation.

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Archimedes' law and potential energy: modelling and simulation with a spreadsheet

Physics Education ◽

10.1088/0031-9120/33/2/010 ◽

1998 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 87-92 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

A Alberto Silva

Keyword(s):

Potential Energy ◽

Modelling And Simulation ◽

Energy Modelling

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The importance of site on house heating energy modelling in Wellington - Integrating EnergyPlus with ENVI-met for site modelling

10.26686/wgtn.17142758.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Wendy Sunarya

Keyword(s):

Design Process ◽

Urban Areas ◽

Fluid Dynamic ◽

Ground Surface ◽

Building Design ◽

Building Energy ◽

Design Strategies ◽

Site Location ◽

Energy Modelling ◽

The Impact

<p>Site is an important factor in the building design process, where it is analysed to determine design strategies for responding the microclimate. It is also considered important in Building Energy Simulations (BES) where a weather file is used to represent the site location and its microclimate. However, many cases of BES in the design process use weather file from a nearby weather station rather than site specific microclimate. In fact, site microclimate can be affected by nearby parameters such as ground surface and vegetation, with unknown effects. In the Wellington, New Zealand context, micro-climates vary widely due to the local topography while suburban houses can be located on the side or bottom of a hill. These houses are likely to have different exposure to the sun and wind which can influence energy consumption for space heating. Many studies about site-parameters impacts mainly focus on the vegetation and nearby buildings effect on microclimate. Only a few estimated the impact of site-parameters on building energy use and mostly their cases are in urban areas (flat terrain). Unfortunately, site parameters, such as altitude and slope, associated with the Wellington topography (hilly terrain) have never been examined. This thesis investigates the importance of site parameters on house heating energy modelling for the Wellington context. BES software, EnergyPlus, was used and explored to identify limitations in modelling site parameters. An attempt was made to solve these limitations through the integration with microclimate software. Three microclimate software programmes were reviewed: ENVI-met, UWG (Urban Weather Generator) and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamic) software. ENVI-met was selected to generate the local air temperature and relative humidity affected by site parameters, which was used for EnergyPlus weather-file modification. A parametric study of ENVI-met basic input with model evaluation was also conducted. The results of parametric test integrating ENVI-met with EnergyPlus showed that ENVI-met mostly produce insignificant impacts of site parameters on house heating energy, unlike the results found in the literature review. This is likely due to the cool weather conditions (winter in Wellington) used in simulation, which suggests that the idea of microclimate modelling using ENVI-met is not applicable for house heating energy modelling in the temperate, Wellington context.</p>

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A probabilistic approach to include the overall efficiency of gas-fired heating systems in urban building energy modelling

Journal of Physics Conference Series ◽

10.1088/1742-6596/2069/1/012105 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2069 (1) ◽

pp. 012105

Author(s):

K Ritosa ◽

I De Jaeger ◽

D Saelens ◽

S Roels

Keyword(s):

Energy Demand ◽

Production Efficiency ◽

Production Control ◽

Probabilistic Approach ◽

Heating System ◽

Building Energy ◽

Heating Systems ◽

Energy Modelling ◽

Gross Energy ◽

Overall Efficiency

Abstract Urban building energy modelling has an essential role in the estimation of energy demand at urban or neighbourhood scales. However, current modelling methods have limitations in reproducing realistic gross energy usage. Although it is theoretically possible to simulate all components of the heating system in detail, such an extensive approach significantly increases the computational effort, prohibiting a large scale probabilistic analysis. As an alternative, this paper presents a simplified data-driven approach to estimate the overall efficiency for the six most occurring gas-fired heating system configurations in Flemish single-family dwellings. For all configurations, efficiencies of emission, distribution, production, control and storage components are taken into account, of which the efficiency of the production unit is modelled most in detail as it includes the load-dependency. The approach is applied to a sample of 20 dwellings reflecting realistic variation in size, insulation quality and occupancy schedules. For all dwellings and the different heating systems the resulting annual production efficiency, and monthly heating systems’ efficiency as a function of gross energy demand are shown based on the 25th, 50th and 75th percentile.

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Advancing urban analytics for energy transitions: Data-driven strategic planning for citywide building retrofitting

10.30746/trita-abe-dlt-2042 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Oleksii Pasichnyi

Keyword(s):

Decision Making ◽

Data Quality ◽

Large Scale ◽

Building Energy ◽

Energy Performance ◽

Energy Data ◽

Modelling Framework ◽

Energy Transitions ◽

Energy Modelling

Decarbonisation of the building stock is essential for energy transitions towards climate-neutral cities in Sweden, Europe and globally. Meeting 1.5°C scenarios is only possible through collaborative efforts by all relevant stakeholders — building owners, housing associations, energy installation companies, city authorities, energy utilities and, ultimately, citizens. These stakeholders are driven by different interests and goals. Many win-win solutions are not implemented due to lack of information, transparency and trust about current building energy performance and available interventions, ranging from city-wide policies to single building energy service contracts. The emergence of big data in the building and energy sectors allows this challenge to be addressed through new types of analytical services based on enriched data, urban energy models, machine learning algorithms and interactive visualisations as important enablers for decision-makers on different levels. The overall aim of this thesis was to advance urban analytics in the building energy domain. Specific objectives were to: (1) develop and demonstrate an urban building energy modelling framework for strategic planning of large-scale building energy retrofitting; (2) investigate the interconnection between quality and applications of urban building energy data; and (3) explore how urban analytics can be integrated into decision-making for energy transitions in cities. Objectives 1 and 2 were pursued within a single case study based on continuous collaboration with local stakeholders in the city of Stockholm, Sweden. Objective 3 was addressed within a multiple case study on participatory modelling for strategic energy planning in two cities, Niš, Serbia, and Stockholm. A transdisciplinary research strategy was applied throughout. A new urban building energy modelling framework was developed and demonstrated for the case of Stockholm. This framework utilises high-resolution building energy data to identify buildings and retrofitting measures with the highest potential, assess the change in total energy demand from large-scale retrofitting and explore its impact on the supply side. Growing use of energy performance certificate (EPC) data and increasing requirements on data quality were identified in a systematic mapping of EPC applications combined with assessment of EPC data quality for Stockholm. Continuity of data collaborations and interactivity of new analytical tools were identified as important factors for better integration of urban analytics into decision-making on energy transitions in cities.

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