scholarly journals The ambivalence of personal control over indoor climate – how much personal control is adequate?

2020 ◽  
Vol 172 ◽  
pp. 06010
Author(s):  
Runa T. Hellwig ◽  
Marcel Schweiker ◽  
Atze Boerstra
Keyword(s):  
User Satisfaction ◽  
Perceived Control ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Sick Building Syndrome ◽  
Personal Control ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Automation Systems

Literature sets personal control over indoor environmental conditions in relation to the gap between predicted and actual energy use, the gap between predicted and observed user satisfaction, and health aspects. A focus on building energy performance often leads to the proposal of more automated and less occupant control of the indoor environment. However, a high degree of personal control is desirable because research shows that a low degree (or no) personal control highly correlates with indoor environmental dissatisfaction and sick building syndrome symptoms. These two tendencies seem contradictory and optimisation almost impossible. Based on current efficiency classes describing the effect of room automation systems on building energy use during operation, fundamental thoughts related to thermophysiology and control, recent laboratory experiments, important lessons learnt from post-occupancy studies, and documented conceptual frameworks on the level of control perceived, we discuss the ambivalence of personal control and how much personal control is adequate. Often-proposed solutions ranging from fully automated controls, over manual controls to dummy controls are discussed according to their effect on a) building energy use during operation and b) occupants perceived control. The discussion points to the importance of adequate personal control. In order to meet the goals for nearly zero energy buildings and for a human-centric design, there is the need to establish design procedures for adequate personal control as part of the design process.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Urban-Scale Building Energy-Use Models and Tools—Application for the City of Fribourg, Switzerland

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1595
Author(s):  
Valeria Todeschi ◽  
Roberto Boghetti ◽  
Jérôme H. Kämpf ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Space Heating ◽  
Engineering Model ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Building energy-use models and tools can simulate and represent the distribution of energy consumption of buildings located in an urban area. The aim of these models is to simulate the energy performance of buildings at multiple temporal and spatial scales, taking into account both the building shape and the surrounding urban context. This paper investigates existing models by simulating the hourly space heating consumption of residential buildings in an urban environment. Existing bottom-up urban-energy models were applied to the city of Fribourg in order to evaluate the accuracy and flexibility of energy simulations. Two common energy-use models—a machine learning model and a GIS-based engineering model—were compared and evaluated against anonymized monitoring data. The study shows that the simulations were quite precise with an annual mean absolute percentage error of 12.8 and 19.3% for the machine learning and the GIS-based engineering model, respectively, on residential buildings built in different periods of construction. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis using the Morris method was carried out on the GIS-based engineering model in order to assess the impact of input variables on space heating consumption and to identify possible optimization opportunities of the existing model.

scholarly journals Big-data for building energy performance: Lessons from assembling a very large national database of building energy use

2015 ◽  
Vol 140 ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul A. Mathew ◽  
Laurel N. Dunn ◽  
Michael D. Sohn ◽  
Andrea Mercado ◽  
Claudine Custudio ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Big Data ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
National Database ◽  
Building Energy Performance ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Large National Database

scholarly journals Energy-Related Occupant Behaviour and Its Implications in Energy Use: A Chronological Review

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 2635 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vivian Tam ◽  
Laura Almeida ◽  
Khoa Le
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Occupant Behaviour ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Key Variables ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
Building Life Cycle

It is essential to understand how significantly occupants’ actions impact the performance of a building, as a whole, in terms of energy use. Consequently, this paper reviews the available resources on energy-related occupant behaviour and its implications in energy use in a building. A chronological review on energy-related occupant behaviour and its implications in energy use has been conducted. As a main existing gap, it was identified by researchers the difference between real energy performance and the one that is predicted during the design stage of a building. The energy predicted during the design stage of a building may be over twice the energy used in the operation stage. Buildings are one of the most energy intensive features in a country. They are affected by the interaction and correlation of several different variables, such as: its physical characteristics, technical systems, equipment, occupants, etc. Therefore, buildings are considered to be complex systems that require a careful and intensive analysis. Moreover, one of the key variables impacting real building energy use is occupant behaviour. The way occupants behave and their motivations are some of the main aspects that need to be considered in a building life-cycle.

scholarly journals Building Retrofitting through Coupling of Building Energy Simulation-Optimization Tool with CFD and Daylight Programs

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2180
Author(s):  
Mehrdad Rabani ◽  
Habtamu Bayera Madessa ◽  
Natasa Nord
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Ventilation System ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Energy Simulation ◽  
Building Energy Simulation ◽  
Visual Comfort ◽  
Indoor Climate ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Air System

Simultaneous satisfaction of both thermal and visual comfort in buildings may be a challenging task. Therefore, this paper suggests a comprehensive framework for the building energy optimization process integrating computational fluid dynamics (CFD) daylight simulations. A building energy simulation tool, IDA Indoor Climate and Energy (IDA-ICE), was coupled with three open-source tools including GenOpt, OpenFOAM, and Radiance. In the optimization phase, several design variables i.e., building envelope properties, fenestration parameters, and Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system set points, were selected to minimize the total building energy use and simultaneously improve thermal and visual comfort. Two different scenarios were investigated for retrofitting of a generic office building located in Oslo, Norway. In the first scenario a constant air volume (CAV) ventilation system with a local radiator in each zone was used, while an all-air system equipped with a demand control ventilation (DCV) was applied in the second scenario. Findings showed that, compared to the reference design, significant reduction of total building energy use, around 77% and 79% in the first and second scenarios, was achieved respectively, and thermal and visual comfort conditions were also improved considerably. However, the overall thermal and visual comfort satisfactions were higher when all-air system was applied.

scholarly journals Influence of User-Related Parameters on Calculated Energy Use in Low-Energy School Buildings

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 2985 ◽  
Author(s):  
Branko Simanic ◽  
Birgitta Nordquist ◽  
Hans Bagge ◽  
Dennis Johansson
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Ventilation System ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Hot Water ◽  
Low Energy ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Low Energy Buildings ◽  
Demand Controlled Ventilation ◽  
The Impact

Literature and experience show that there are large discrepancies between the calculated and measured building energy usages, where user-related parameters are significant factors with regard to energy use in low-energy buildings. Furthermore, the difficulties encountered when quantifying these parameters compound these discrepancies. The main aim of this study was to provide feedback that would help the building industry and research communities to predict more accurately the impact of the user-related parameters on energy performance. The results of the study would, subsequently, contribute to minimizing the discrepancies between calculated and measured energy use. This article analyses simulated building energy use based on randomly chosen combinations of measured user-related parameters in three recently built low-energy schools in Sweden. The results show that energy performance can span from 30 to 160 kWh/(m² y) simply by varying the combination of previously measured user-related parameters in building energy simulations. The study shows that the set points for indoor air temperatures during the heating season and the energy required to run a demand-controlled ventilation system have an extensive influence, while tenant electricity use has a slightly lower influence on building energy use. Variations in occupancy rates and energy for hot water usage have the smallest influences on building energy use.

A Comparative Study on Building Energy Performance between Movable and Fixed Shading Materials

2012 ◽  
Vol 164 ◽  
pp. 85-88
Author(s):  
Xiao Chang Yang ◽  
Jian Yao
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Public Building ◽  
Building Energy Performance ◽  
Energy Demands ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Better Than

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of movable shading on building energy demands. A public building and a residential building with movable shading and fixed shading were modeled by the building energy use simulation software DOE-2. Cooling and heating energy demands were calculated. The results showed that movable shading is better than fixed shading.

scholarly journals Energy and Greenhouse Gas Savings for LEED-Certified U.S. Office Buildings

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 749
Author(s):  
John H. Scofield ◽  
Susannah Brodnitz ◽  
Jakob Cornell ◽  
Tian Liang ◽  
Thomas Scofield
Keyword(s):  
Greenhouse Gas ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Electric Energy ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Office Buildings ◽  
Ghg Emission ◽  
Site Energy ◽  
New Construction

In this work, we present results from the largest study of measured, whole-building energy performance for commercial LEED-certified buildings, using 2016 energy use data that were obtained for 4417 commercial office buildings (114 million m2) from municipal energy benchmarking disclosures for 10 major U.S. cities. The properties included 551 buildings (31 million m2) that we identified as LEED-certified. Annual energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission were compared between LEED and non-LEED offices on a city-by-city basis and in aggregate. In aggregate, LEED offices demonstrated 11% site energy savings but only 7% savings in source energy and GHG emission. LEED offices saved 26% in non-electric energy but demonstrated no significant savings in electric energy. LEED savings in GHG and source energy increased to 10% when compared with newer, non-LEED offices. We also compared the measured energy savings for individual buildings with their projected savings, as determined by LEED points awarded for energy optimization. This analysis uncovered minimal correlation, i.e., an R2 < 1% for New Construction (NC) and Core and Shell (CS), and 8% for Existing Euildings (EB). The total measured site energy savings for LEED-NC and LEED-CS was 11% lower than projected while the total measured source energy savings for LEED-EB was 81% lower than projected. Only LEED offices certified at the gold level demonstrated statistically significant savings in source energy and greenhouse gas emissions as compared with non-LEED offices.

scholarly journals A Rapid Review on Community Connected Microgrids

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6753
Author(s):  
Moiz Masood Syed ◽  
Gregory M. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Rapid Review ◽  
Solar Pv ◽  
Electricity Cost ◽  
Building Energy Use

As the population of urban areas continues to grow, and construction of multi-unit developments surges in response, building energy use demand has increased accordingly and solutions are needed to offset electricity used from the grid. Renewable energy systems in the form of microgrids, and grid-connected solar PV-storage are considered primary solutions for powering residential developments. The primary objectives for commissioning such systems include significant electricity cost reductions and carbon emissions abatement. Despite the proliferation of renewables, the uptake of solar and battery storage systems in communities and multi-residential buildings are less researched in the literature, and many uncertainties remain in terms of providing an optimal solution. This literature review uses the rapid review technique, an industry and societal issue-based version of the systematic literature review, to identify the case for microgrids for multi-residential buildings and communities. The study describes the rapid review methodology in detail and discusses and examines the configurations and methodologies for microgrids.

scholarly journals The Development of a Biomimetic Design Tool for Building Energy Efficiency

Biomimetics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Negin Imani ◽  
Brenda Vale
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Thermal Adaptation ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Building Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Efficient Buildings ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Architectural Framework

The initial aim of the research was to develop a framework that would enable architects to look for thermoregulation methods in nature as inspiration for designing energy efficient buildings. The thermo-bio-architectural framework (ThBA) assumes designers will start with a thermal challenge in a building and then look in a systematic way for how this same issue is solved in nature. The tool is thus a contribution to architectural biomimicry in the field of building energy use. Since the ThBA was created by an architect, it was essential that the biology side of this cross-disciplinary tool was validated by experts in biology. This article describes the focus group that was conducted to assess the quality, inclusiveness, and applicability of the framework and why a focus group was selected over other possible methods such as surveys or interviews. The article first provides a brief explanation of the development of the ThBA. Given the focus here is on its validation, the qualitative data collection procedures and analysis results produced by NVivo 12 plus through thematic coding are described in detail. The results showed the ThBA was effective in bridging the two fields based on the existing thermal challenges in buildings, and was comprehensive in terms of generalising biological thermal adaptation strategies.

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