Simulation Models to Optimize the Energy Consumption of Buildings

Abstract

In practice, building operation systems are only adjusted during commissioning. This is done manually and leads to failure-free but often inefficient operation. This work deals with the development of simulation models to describe and optimize the building operation. Therefore a sufficiently correct representation of the building envelope, plant equipment, controls, occupancy and use of the building needs to be implemented in the simulation model. The aim of this work is to find the best compromise between accuracy and simplicity of the models to improve the usability for optimization and reduce the computing time. Models for the building and plant equipment of different complexity are developed and compared. Hourly building data is used to validate and calibrate the models. For this study the equation based simulation software IDA-ICE was used. With the simulation models simple optimizations of the building operation are conducted.