A New Generation of Thermal Energy Benchmarks for University Buildings

Salah Vaisi,Benedetto Nastasi,Saleh Mohammadi,Kavan Javanroodi

doi:10.3390/en13246606

Abstract

In 2008, the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE TM46 UC) presented an annual-fixed thermal energy benchmark of 240 kWh/m2/yr for university campus (UC) buildings as an attempt to reduce energy consumption in public buildings. However, the CIBSE TM46 UC benchmark fails to consider the difference between energy demand in warm and cold months, as the thermal performance of buildings largely depends on the ambient temperature. This paper presents a new generation of monthly thermal energy benchmarks (MTEBs) using two computational methods including mixed-use model and converter model, which consider the variations of thermal demand throughout a year. MTEBs were generated using five basic variables, including mixed activities in the typical college buildings, university campus revised benchmark (UCrb), typical operation of heating systems, activities impact, and heating degree days. The results showed that MTEBs vary from 24 kWh/m2/yr in January to one and nearly zero kWh/m2/yr in June and July, respectively. Based on the detailed assessments, a typical college building was defined in terms of the percentage of its component activities. Compared with the 100% estimation error of the TM46 UC benchmark, the maximum 21% error of the developed methodologies is a significant achievement. The R-squared value of 99% confirms the reliability of the new generation of benchmarks.

Highlights

There has been a global trend in the recent years to reduce energy demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the higher educational institution buildings [1]
This paper addressed this research gap by introducing a novel method, namely, monthly thermal energy benchmarks (MTEBs)
This study considers the impacts of various activities such as computer rooms, offices, library, laboratory, seminar and research rooms, workshop, stores, and restaurant and coffee offices, seminar and rooms,buildings workshop, stores, and restaurant and coffee shops library, on the laboratory, energy consumption in research typical college using a revised benchmark (UCrb) shops onReaders the energy typical college buildings a revised benchmarkabout (UCrb) are consumption referred to anin earlier study by the authorsusing

Summary

Introduction

There has been a global trend in the recent years to reduce energy demand and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the higher educational institution buildings [1]. The trend is even more accelerated by the new policies and regulations such as the European Green Deal with ambitious goals to achieve neutral GHG cities and areas by 2050 [2]. In this regard, energy benchmarking is a useful tool to evaluate the energy performance of buildings [3]. The “energy benchmarking” term was used in the 1990s to refer to the knowledge of comparing energy consumption in similar building types (peer buildings) [10]. Energy benchmarking compares the annual total primary energy required (TPER) per unit area (m2 ) in a building with the median consumption of peers [13].

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