An energy model of high-rise apartment buildings integrating variation in energy consumption between individual units

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Building energy modelling methods have been required to be more accurate by taking into account variation in building factors affecting on energy consumption. However, modelling approaches for high-rise apartment buildings have often disregarded variation arising from individual apartment units. This study aimed to develop a building energy model of high-rise apartment buildings by integrating variation derived from individual apartment units. The methods were designed in three steps: identifying unit-specific heating consumption in different locations; creating a building energy model, based on the physical characteristics of apartment units and identifying the influential heating controls on heating energy consumption; and integrating a new set of polynomial model of independent heating controls in units and their interactions between floors. The result indicates that the averaged heating energy consumption of whole-building has a limited interpretation to represent the wide range of heating energy use in apartment units with different locations from 96 to 171kWh/m2/year. The integrated set of polynomial model found that apartment units on lower floors need either higher set-point temperatures or longer heating hours than the probable heating control in the building-scale. Moreover, the accuracy of the model estimation is also improved to CV RMSE 5.6%.