The paper deals with two construction details and discusses the opportunities and limits of their computer aided building simulation. Both details occur in the area of building renovation and modernization. The first is a 3-D joint of a partially protruding roof terrace with surrounding walls and a pitched roof, and the second is a fragment of the thick, rough, non-plastered stone wall of a building monument with adjacent additionally insulated walls and roof.

To have a proper energy management in buildings, it is necessary to evaluate its HVAC system. To properly compare operating strategies and solve possible problems, one needs to reproduce the building and its HVAC system behavior under real life conditions (building materials, cooling, heating and ventilation demands, meteorological conditions, etc.).

Highly glazed buildings are often considered to be airy, light and transparent with more access to daylight than traditional buildings, but their energy efficiency is often questioned. This article deals with energy and indoor climate simulations of single skin office buildings in Sweden using a dynamic energy simulation tool. Different building alternatives were studied with 30%, 60% and 100% window area.

This paper deals with the issue of using micro- Combined Heating and Power plants (mCHP) in high-performance houses in terms of energy conservation and cost savings. On the one hand, since mCHP systems have only a modest electrical conversion efficiency, effective exploitation of the thermal output is critical to achieving high levels of energy efficiency. On the other hand, modern high performance residential buildings display a heat-topower load ratio that does not match well with the heat-to-power supply ratio of mCHP.

The EnerGuide for Houses (EGH) database is a management information tool and central depository for tracking residential energy evaluations and measuring benefits from the energy evaluations delivered across Canada. The EGH database is a comprehensive computer-based system developed by Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) for the management of its energy efficiency oriented programs. Energy advisors perform detailed house energy efficiency evaluations and use the energy analysis software to recommend energy efficiency measures to homeowners.

It is well recognised that validation of dynamic building simulation programs is a long-term complex task. There have been many large national and international efforts that have led to a well-established validation methodology comprising analytical, inter-program comparison and empirical validation components, and a significant number of tests have been developed.

This paper presents a simulation-assisted daylightresponsive illumination control system. The controller application in this system can dynamically adjust the position of window blinds and the status of the room luminaires to achieve user-specified performance levels. In its main mode of operation, the control application considers in regular time intervals a set of alternative combinations of the states of control devices (e.g. position of window blinds, dimming levels of luminaires) for an immediate next time step.

This paper describes a case study to estimate the time and effort needed by novice designers to computationally evaluate the performance of building designs. A group of senior architecture students participated in the study, learning and using a software application to assess the energy performance of six project submissions for a school building design competition.

This paper deals with the dynamical modelling of a solar evacuated tube collector under variable weather conditions. After describing the mathematical model, the paper presents elements of validation. In a first step, the theorical model is validated against the experimental results. Then a parametric sensitivity analysis is applied to the model. Such a study is very interesting for modellers in order to determine the relative importance and the nature of the effect of the parameters. It is important so as to improve the model by controlling this paramaters or accurately measuring it. 

The objective of this paper is to examine different means of producing domestic hot water (DHW) in Zero net energy homes (ZNEH). Four alternatives are examined : i) a regular electric hot water tank; ii) the desuperheater of a ground-source heat pump with electric backup; iii) thermal solar collectors with electric backup; iv) a heat pump water heater (HPWH) indirectly coupled to a space conditioning ground-source heat pump. Energy simulations, using TRNSYS as the simulation engine, are performed to evaluate each alternative.