Energy simulation of a single family dwelling as a test bench for climate control system assessment

In the present work a real dwelling (a semi-detached house in the Netherlands) has been modelled with an in-house modular object-oriented building simulation tool, called NEST-Buildings. This software models the whole building as a collection of elements (e.g., walls, rooms, outdoors, people, ventilation tubes and boxes, solar radiation distributor, HVAC, airflow, CO2 transport, etc.) connected between them through boundary conditions. Special emphasis has been given to the airflow model of the house. The main objective of the modellization of a real dwelling is to use it as a test bench for a new affordable, easy to use and apply, integral dwelling climate control system called DCCS (Dwelling Climate Control System), whose one of its objectives is reducing the energy use of buildings by optimizing the parameters of the heating and the ventilation system and ensuring the indoor quality inside the dwelling (by means of CO2 concentration control). In the present paper the effect of different control strategies on the energy performance of the house as well as on the quality of the air has been analysed.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version