Hot water distribution improvement for multi-resident buildings

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Energy consumption together with resident comfort and safety in multi-resident condominiums can be challenging. The residential building sector consumes 11-35% of total energy at the national levels in most countries. In the United States, the domestic hot water (DHW) use in multi-resident buildings is the second largest (next to space heating) portion of residential energy consumption. Some factors that can affect energy consumption, resident comfort and safety (e.g., scalding, legionella) include: (1) efficiency of the water heater, (2) control of flow circulation, (3) piping layout and architecture, (4) degraded and failed components and, (5) insulation of the distribution system including the recirculation loop. Hence, there is a clear need for comprehensive and validated DHW models to support retrofitting of existing distribution systems and new condominium construction builds. Such models would allow for the design of a reliable DHW distribution system, leading to elimination of resident discomfort (via timely delivery of hot water during peak hours) and higher hot water heating via regulated flow of hot water. These models would also provide insight on spatial distribution of temperature across the components of the DHW distribution system (i.e. hot water storage tank) to identify regions susceptible to Legionella bacteria. Equation-based (object-oriented) modeling and simulation tools such as OpenModelica (a Modelica-based modeling and simulation environment) and Simulink® can support improvement to understanding of DHW distribution systems. The present study will validate OpenModelica against real-world field tests. Such models can aid in retrofits and new condominium construction via better technology.