A statistical-based optimization method to integrate thermal comfort in the design of low energy consumption building

Abstract

It is necessary to design energy-efficient buildings so that a trade-off between energy-savings and occupants’ thermal comfort is fulfilled. Advanced thermal comfort-based control strategies have been proposed for this purpose. However, such an approach could consume energy as the conventional one if the building is poorly designed. The aim of this study is to propose a method that integrates thermal comfort in the design of energy-efficient buildings. The use of sensitivity analysis and an optimization approach to identify the values of design parameters represent its core steps. The meta-modeling approach based on the design of experiments technique is adopted to perform the sensitivity analysis. Then, the obtained meta-models are used to optimize building design for the intended objectives. A case study is selected to test the proposed method. The results indicated that implementing the suggested strategy leads to about 20% of heating energy-savings compared to the base case while significantly enhancing occupant thermal comfort. Moreover, the results indicated that a reduction of about 22% of heating energy can be achieved compared to the comfort controlled case while it consumes 4% more if the comfort control is applied to the optimized design while maintaining consistent thermal comfort conditions.