English

The Aldo Leopold Legacy Center is designed to be a net-zero energy building.  This paper explains how simulation modelling was integrated into the design process to achieve the design goals.  Simulation was used to evaluate the building shell, including natural ventilation potential as well as evaluate individual HVAC components.  The simulation model was also used to size HVAC equipment and evaluate control strategies. The simulation model underestimated actual energy use.  Differences between model and actual energy use are discussed. 

Extensive energy modeling was used during the design process of the Aldo Leopold Foundation Legacy Center in Baraboo, Wisconsin (USA) both to minimize the building’s overall projected energy use and in a number of instances to determine whether proposed subsystems were viable for maintaining comfort.

This paper outlines a novel methodology for calibrating building energy simulation (BES) models through the use of an evidence-based approach and detailed simulation modelling. The proposed calibration methodology is applied to a 30,000m2 office building. The case study illustrates the results of calibrating the model to Energy Monitoring System (EMS) and other readily accessible data. The paper concludes with a discussion on the current state of calibrated BES modelling and building measurement frameworks. 

Decisions made in the very first stages of a building’s design often have a significant impact on energy efficiency and internal environment of the building.

Today, many building software tools for evaluating energy efficiency are available. More than three hundred are listed by the US Department of Energy. Despite the diversity of the tools and their users, they generally share the same goals: to reduce the consumption of energy and even to produce surplus energy. We were interested in comparing the information provided by five softwares programmes that are widely used in France: EnergyPlus, TrnSys, CoDyBa, Pleiades + Comfie and PHPP.

The drive to reduce UK Carbon Emissions directly associated with dwellings and to achieve a zero carbon home dictates that Renewable Energy Technologies will have an increasingly large role in the built environment.  Created by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is the UK Government’s recommended method of assessing the energy ratings of dwellings.  This paper presents an evaluation of the advantage given to SAP ratings by the domestic installation of typical Photovoltaic (PV) and Solar Domestic Hot Water (SDHW) systems in the UK.

With the increasing awareness of sustainable development in the construction industry, implementation of an energy rating procedure to assess buildings is becoming more important. The most representative building environment assessment schemes that are in use today are Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) and Green Star. This paper aims to focus on the investigation of energy performance assessment for new office buildings within the LEED, BREEAM and Green Star schemes.

Ultraviolet Germicidal Irradiation (UVGI) systems use 254 nm UVC radiation to inactivate microorganisms in the air and on surfaces. In-duct UVGI systems are installed in air-handling units or air distribution systems to inactivate microorganisms “on the fly” and on surfaces.  The literature contains few investigations of the economic performance of UVGI. This study presents a simulation-based life-cycle cost analysis of in-duct UVGI in a hypothetical office building served by VAV systems.

In-duct ultraviolet germicidal irradiation (UVGI) systems treat moving air streams in heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems to inactivate airborne microorganisms. UVGI system performance depends on air temperature, velocity, cumulative operating time, variations in exposure time and other factors. Annual simulations of UVGI efficiency and space concentration that accounted for these effects were performed for a hypothetical building served by a VAV system.

Artificial lighting contributes for a large part to the primary energy use of an office building. Lighting control systems can help reduce the lighting energy use. When calculating the potential energy savings, neglecting the occupant behaviour leads to an overestimation. This research shows that the energy saving performance of a daylight dimming system in an individual office decreases by about 10% when user behaviour is accounted for. A parameter analysis shows that this result is fairly independent of boundary conditions.