Low energy communities: the automatic sizing of hybrid renewable energy schemes and the generation of a simulation input model for performance appraisal

Integrated building performance simulation (IBPS) provides an appropriate means to appraise the performance of low energy communities featuring cooperating technologies for demand management and low carbon heat/power delivery. Only by addressing such communities in a holistic and dynamic manner can the performance characteristics of the individual technologies be discerned and overall, well-found solutions established.This paper addresses a major issue confronting the utilisation of IBPS in such a role: how to generate the initial input model in terms of the capacity levels of each technology that are likely to give an effective demand/supply match in practice. In the described work this is accomplished by using a search engine to locate the best quantitative match between demand (which could be represented by actual or anticipated data) and potential supply profiles and then using the outcome to synthesise an ESP-r model for use to ensure that the identified hybrid supply will perform well in practice. The approach outlined ensures that the final design to emerge is arrived at through a rational process as opposed to the refinement of some initial design hypothesis based on arbitrary sizing considerations.