Heating systems and their influence on the energy demand of buildings

For new design approaches the engineers of HVAC systems need tools for estimating energy requirements of different heating systems in advance. The heat losses of buildings can be classified into three fields. These are at first the losses through transmission and ventilation. Further on there are the losses which occur during heat generation (e.g. boiler heat losses). The third field contains the losses occurring at the heat distribution (e.g. pipe heat losses). The results presented in this paper will show that the ability of a heating system to follow the needed heating load in rooms have great influence on the energy demand. This paper describes the results of various HVAC simulations. It shows the range of energy saving potentials for different heating systems. The paper also gives answers on how generalizations can be made and how the calculation of the energy saving potential can be performed without simulation. Further on functions and parameters are explained which help to calculate the actual heating energy demand. These functions and parameters are based on the ideal energy demand of a building. They consider the behaviour of the real heating system as well.