Development of a functionality generating simulations of commercial and institutional buildings having representative characteristics of a real estate stock in Québec (Canada)

This article describes the development of a functionality generating simulations of commercial and institutional buildings with representative characteristics of a real estate stock in Québec. The functionality requires very little information such as the main building activity, the floor area and the construction year of the building. With these inputs, the physical and operational characteristics (R-value of the envelope, type of windows, type of HVAC, system controls, schedules, type of activities, etc.) are statistically extracted from a database and transmitted to the input fields of an hourly building energy simulation software. It is then possible, with very little information, to simulate the energy performance of a group of buildings as seen in Quebec’s building stock.