Studying the Influential Parameters in an Office Building’s Energy Consumption

Windsor, Ontario

Research on the energy consumption of buildings has become increasingly important due to the growing global population and depleting energy resources. This study focuses on modeling the energy usage of an office building by examining the various parameters that influence its electricity consumption. An existing office building located in Philadelphia is selected as a reference for simulation, and the simulated results and measured values are compared. The parameters that affect the building, such as ambient temperature, solar radiation, building envelope, wind speed, and other internal gains, are discussed and defined. To verify the model, a transient simulation is run for sinusoidal ambient weather data for 180 hours, with a timestep of 15 minutes. The thermal mass and thermal resistance of the building envelope cause the expected delay and attenuation in the indoor temperature and indoor power demand. The building is then subjected to real case inputs from the actual office building for predictive modeling. The simulation output is compared with the measured power consumption data from the literature, which is provided for each month over the course of a full year (2004). To account for the variability of a building's infiltration rate over a year, the results are plotted for two different infiltration values: 0.25 ACH and 0.85 ACH. It is found that the simulated results for the two infiltration values provided are within the range of the measured values. This study provides valuable information on the factors that affect the energy usage of office buildings. The simulation results demonstrate the predictability of modeling an office building energy usage. As part of future work, this model will be employed to perform a sensitivity analysis on energy consumption for each parameter, with the aim of pinpointing the parameter that exerts the most substantial influence.