English

The reliable assessment of the annual energy demand has become necessary in view of building energy performance certification. Accurate models must be used to simulate the behaviour of HVAC components in real operation, usually characterized by a wide variation of building loads. In this context, this paper deals with the development and validation of an algorithm aimed at the assessment of part load performance of various kinds of controls for vapour compresion based heat pumps and chillers, in particular referring to on-off, inverter-driven and multi-stage vapour compression.

Recent researches propose the integration of performance analysis to early stages of the design process in order to obtain the building´s best final performance (Kolarevric; Malkawi, 2005; Holzer, 2010; Oxman, 2007). Thus, choosing the appropriate set of solutions and digital tools to develop this task is of high complexity and responsibility.

Natural ventilation in building is a common way to ensure indoor air quality, thermal comfort in summer and reduce energy consumption due to air conditioning. However, efficiency of such a system is highly dependent on climatic conditions. In this paper we review the different ways to use natural ventilation in buildings and then we propose indicators to assess the potential of a site. The study focuses on the Mediterranean climate and especially the coastal zones, characterized by the occurrence of thermal breezes which can be used to improve natural cross ventilation.

Integrated building performance simulation (IBPS) provides an appropriate means to appraise the performance of low energy communities featuring cooperating technologies for demand management and low carbon heat/power delivery.

In this paper, dynamic simulation software (in this case, DesignBuilder) has been used to model and to simulate a typical 1960s UK social housing in order to examine the impact of retrofit, occupant behaviour and user lifestyle on energy pattern. In terms of retrofitting study, various energy efficiency measurements have been considered such as improving level of insulations and heating system’s efficiency. For the occupant behaviour influence study, three types of heating control patterns have been created such as ‘Constant On’, ‘NCM’ and ‘Programmed Heating Control’.

This paper describes and focuses on the applications of a new range of smart building products, particularly Integrated Building Technology (IBT) systems, with the aim to demonstrate savings for improving energy efficiency and indoor environments in buildings. A typical commercial office space has been modelled via dynamic computer simulation software, considering scenarios of before and after the installation of IBT systems. This has then been compared against different building regulations and standards e.g. UK Building Regulation 2006 and ASHRAE 90.1.

This paper focuses on the optimization of control strategies with regard to the end energy consumption and the thermal comfort of low-exergy systems for space heating in non-residential buildings. The sur-vey building uses a small-scale heat pump system (2.8 kWtherm) with a floor heating system. Firstly, the thermal as well as the hydraulic system was modeled in Modelica. The control parameters of the applied conventional control strategy were investigated con-cerning their impact on the end energy consumption and the thermal comfort.

Today’s thermostat setpoint models naïvely assume fixed schedules, ignoring the reality of user control and its large variability. Better models must include more realistic user-behavior profiles to correctly evaluate the energy benefits of the next generation of thermostats against a realistic baseline. Data from a recent thermostat field study were analyzed to demonstrate the variation and patterns associated with manual adjustment of programmable thermostats and its consequences on observed and simulated energy consumption.