Hourly simulation results of building energy simulation tools using a reference office building as a case study

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.

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Variations in results of building energy simulation tools, and their impact on BREEAM and LEED ratings: A case study

Energy and Buildings ◽

10.1016/j.enbuild.2013.03.022 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 62 ◽

pp. 350-359 ◽

Cited By ~ 60

Author(s):

Yair Schwartz ◽

Rokia Raslan

Keyword(s):

Building Energy ◽

Energy Simulation ◽

Building Energy Simulation ◽

Simulation Tools

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Development of Test Procedure for the Evaluation of Building Energy Simulation Tools - Phase II Expansion of Evaluation Targets and Results of Simulation Trials -

Proceedings of Building Simulation 2019: 16th Conference of IBPSA ◽

10.26868/25222708.2019.210592 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Eikichi Ono ◽

Sei Ito ◽

Harunori Yoshida

Keyword(s):

Phase Ii ◽

Test Procedure ◽

Building Energy ◽

Energy Simulation ◽

Building Energy Simulation ◽

Simulation Tools

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Modelling double skin façades (DSFs) in whole-building energy simulation tools: Validation and inter-software comparison of a mechanically ventilated single-story DSF

Building and Environment ◽

10.1016/j.buildenv.2021.107906 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 199 ◽

pp. 107906

Author(s):

Elena Catto Lucchino ◽

Adrienn Gelesz ◽

Kristian Skeie ◽

Giovanni Gennaro ◽

András Reith ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Building Energy ◽

Energy Simulation ◽

Building Energy Simulation ◽

Mechanically Ventilated ◽

Simulation Tools ◽

Software Comparison ◽

Double Skin ◽

Whole Building Energy Simulation ◽

Double Skin Facades

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Updated Typical Weather Years for the Energy Simulation of Buildings in Mediterranean Climate. A Case Study for Sicily

Energies ◽

10.3390/en13164115 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 13 (16) ◽

pp. 4115 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Vincenzo Costanzo ◽

Gianpiero Evola ◽

Marco Infantone ◽

Luigi Marletta

Keyword(s):

Residential Building ◽

Building Energy ◽

Energy Simulation ◽

Weather Data ◽

Weather Station ◽

Simulation Tools ◽

The Difference ◽

Energy Simulations

Building energy simulations are normally run through Typical Weather Years (TWYs) that reflect the average trend of local long-term weather data. This paper presents a research aimed at generating updated typical weather files for the city of Catania (Italy), based on 18 years of records (2002–2019) from a local weather station. The paper reports on the statistical analysis of the main recorded variables, and discusses the difference with the data included in a weather file currently available for the same location based on measurements taken before the 1970s but still used in dynamic energy simulation tools. The discussion also includes a further weather file, made available by the Italian Thermotechnical Committee (CTI) in 2015 and built upon the data registered by the same weather station but covering a much shorter period. Three new TWYs are then developed starting from the recent data, according to well-established procedures reported by ASHRAE and ISO standards. The paper discusses the influence of the updated TWYs on the results of building energy simulations for a typical residential building, showing that the cooling and heating demand can differ by 50% or even 65% from the simulations based on the outdated weather file.

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