Analysis of the Energy Performance of a Retrofitted Low-Rise Residential Building after an Energy Audit

Abstract

The main reason for this research is to support the Korean government building retrofitting program initiated to evaluate energy usage trends, propose energy-saving technologies, and focus on reducing the energy demand in residential buildings through energy efficiency improvement. This is achieved by assessing the energy saved after introducing a simple retrofitting measure to an existing residential building. The energy savings in the building were realized after collecting relevant data from the house occupants, analyzing electricity bills, and introducing energy conservation measures (ECMS), leading to an improvement in the energy performance of the building. The building envelope saved 2098 kWh and 6307 kWh of energy via the heating and cooling equipment with an initial incremental cost of USD 500, fuel cost savings of USD 306, and a simple payback of 1.6 years. The analysis takes the occupants 2.6 years to recoup the initial cost of USD 2400 invested with an electricity savings of 2144 kWh. Also, 3.3 tons of CO2 emissions per year were reduced, equivalent to 3.3 people reducing energy use by 20%. Finally, the actual and simulated data are almost the same for the consumption period, with only a slight difference in October and December, given 0.92 as the Pearson Correlation coefficients.