Adaptation of building envelope models for energy simulation at district scale

Abstract

In order to reduce computational cost of district scale energy simulations, very simplified building envelope models are often used. However, the impacts induced by such simplifications, are not systematically validated, especially for instantaneous power demand, required for district energy network design and management, since those models are mainly designed for monthly or annual energy consumptions. This paper aims to analyse the impacts of usual envelope simplifications used at the district scale (such as conduction modelling, zoning, allocation of transmitted solar flux, controlled temperature modelling, etc.) on the building energy needs, and, consequently, to suggest relevant selections of adaptations according to the simulation focus, i.e. the temporal resolution.