Heating energy consumption of a multi-storey municipal residential building : Measurement methodology analysis, modeling and optimization

Energy issues in the building sector become more and more important nowadays. Although the technology improves, the energy consumption remains the same because of people’s way of living. To reduce the energy consumption, it is possible to improve the technical components that form the building envelope and to change people’s habits. This report aims at determining the best measurement methodology of the heating and hot water consumption of a building to insure real-time visualization and evaluating the energy savings that could be made by changing people habits. To do so, an existing measurement methodology is analyzed by making error calculations and computer-based modeling and simulations are carried out to determine the heating consumption of the building under different conditions. The program DesignBuilder is used to assess the energy consumption of the building. The study shows that a consequent reduction of the heating consumption is possible by only changing people’s habits. Real-time visualization would be really helpful but it needs very accurate measurements that are almost impossible if they are not integrated in the first stages of the building process