A Case Study of Weather Impact on Energy Conservation Measures in Building

Buildings consume more than 40% of the world’s primary energy, of which heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) is the largest end use. Nowadays, more energy conservation measures (ECMs) are developed to improve the building performance and reduce energy use. Furthermore, the variations of thermal loads and energy use of HVAC in buildings are directly influenced by weather. The energy use in buildings calculated using the typical metrological year (TMY) weather data aims to represent the average or typical values but not necessarily so because different types of buildings with different energy service systems and operations have different responses to weather. This paper presents a case study to investigate the impact of weather on energy savings of various ECMs for an actual office building using EnergyPlus simulations with 32-year (1980 to 2011) Actual Meteorological Year (AMY) weather data. The building model is calibrated with actual monthly electricity bills. Then different building performance levels are simulated by varying the ECMs. A comprehensive analysis is conducted to assess the benefit of each ECM and their integrated design effect. Finally, the simulated results are compared with the measured data to evaluate the annual energy use and energy-saving.