BEM to BIM in the early design phase: A comparison between static and dynamic heating energy predictions

Abstract

Due to climate change and increasing pressures on resources, the demand for more energy-efficient buildings is increasing globally. Building information modeling (BIM) and building energy modeling (BEM) are two essential tools to make the necessary transition to net-zero energy buildings (NZEB). This article presents two case studies aiming to automate information from the BIM model to predict annual heating energy use at the early design phase (EDP) using static energy calculations. This article presents a comparison between results obtained with the static and dynamic energy calculations with the building energy simulation (BES) package IDA-ICE. The goal of the static calculations is to allow working directly in the BIM model in real time to obtain annual energy use based on building surfaces, heated floor area, heated volume, and other inputs related to the heating degree-day (HDD) method. This article shows that the static method provides results that differ by ±25% from results of the dynamic method, which is sufficiently precise at an early design phase to provide guidance to the architects, who make key decisions affecting building energy performance.