Sensitivity analysis for daily building operation from the energy and thermal comfort standpoint

Abstract

Improving energy performance of buildings is one of the most important tasks for reaching sustainability. Assessing building energy consumption is performed more often with specialized simulation tools. Sensitivity analysis proved to be a valuable tool for creating more reliable and realistic building energy models and better buildings. This paper briefly describes the methodology for running global sensitivity analysis and tools that can be used, and presents the results of such an analysis conducted for winter period, daily, on input variables covering a real building's operation, control and occupant related parameters that affect both thermal comfort and heating energy consumption. Two sets of inputs were created. The only difference between these sets is an addition of clothing insulation and occupant heat gain as input variables. The reference building was simulated for three distinctive winter weeks. Two additional input variables have an effect especially on thermal comfort, but they do not disturb the relative order of other influential input variables. The common influential variables for both energy consumption and thermal comfort were identified and are: air handling unit supply temperature and airflow rate and control system related parameters. This can help in future research into implementing the simulation-assisted optimized operation in real buildings.