Improving energy performance of buildings during operation

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Building operation accounts for about 80% of the environmental impacts of buildings over their lifetime. Hence, improving energy performance of buildings during operation has the potential to significantly lessen their environmental burden. The use of building modelling and simulation tools to assess energy performance, identify operation issues, propose retrofits, and evaluate new control strategies is rapidly gaining acceptance. However, there are often discrepancies between predictions of building energy use by the available tools compared to measurements made during building operation, which has a direct impact on the long-term energy performance of buildings. Three short-term objectives are proposed to bridge the gap between predicted and measured performance of buildings and improve the energy performance of building during operation: (1) to develop a feedback methodology where measured building data are used to assess the actual performance of innovative designs during operation and enable the use of more realistic modelling strategies and input parameters for the design of future buildings; (2)to propose new calibration techniques and inverse models at the equipment level to account for changes during operation to improve the accuracy of the simulation results for ongoing commissioning and building retrofit purposes; (3) to integrate monitored data and ongoing commissioning techniques to building information models (BIM). The first objective aims to develop a methodology based on various performance indices to compare the monitored results during operation with design simulation results. Design data and monitored data are collected and compared to identify and establish new modelling and simulation techniques to reduce the discrepancies between design and operation performances for future buildings. The second objective consists of the development of an approach to modify performance curves used in simulation tools and the development of new models for mechanical equipment and components to take into account changes occurring during operation, such as equipment degradation, using monitored data. A general and systematic approach will be proposed for the modification of component parameters during the operation phase of buildings for calibration purposes. The approach undertaken includes the acquisition of information and data, followed by the identification of input parameters and performance curves of major equipment with data extracted from a subset of measured data or from the manufacturer's catalog data. The default values or curves are then replaced with the newly identified input parameters in the simulation tools and a comparison between the predictions and measurements is carried out. The last objective looks at using building information models to further improve the performance of buildings during operation by integrating energy simulation and measured data to BIM. The methodology will consist of identifying and integrating various existing ongoing commissioning tools and visualisation tools as well as new modules to allow the building operator to have a better representation of the building performance and problems. The proposed objectives are a step towards the continuous improvement of building performance from design to operation. This aspect is often neglected by the industry and by prolonging the usefulness of the design tools during the operation phase and including measured data to improve design approaches, the overall performance of buildings will be enhanced. As energy targets become more stringent, research in this field is becoming critical to ensure the long-term energy performance of buildings by maintaining the performance requirements beyond the first few years of operation.