Closing the gap between simulation and measured energy use in home archetypes

Abstract

Recent climate action plans set ambitious targets for large-scale home energy retrofit. These retrofit targets also recommend switching from oil boilers to electrical heat pumps. One area-based approach to retrofit is neighbourhood scale. Ideally with local community participation, neighbourhood retrofit improves a group of structurally similar homes, of the same archetype. Defined home archetypes already exist for 20 European countries thanks to previous research. That same research attempted steady-state calculations of space heating energy using the ISO 13790 Seasonal Method. Those calculations diverged from measured energy use by a large gap. Taking example home archetypes from Ireland, this study narrowed this energy-use gap by incorporating realistic parameters and schedules. Physical white-box models were constructed in DesignBuilder, and simulated by EnergyPlus with local weather data. The simulations combined realistic heating schedules, internal gains, infiltration and ventilation; converging simulation energy use with typical measurements and mostly achieved model calibration indices. Therefore, the resultant energy-use data was capable of tuning future grey-box models to investigate home energy use across ranges of heating patterns and heating setpoints. The aims of this study are threefold. First, devise a repeatable method to produce heat energy-use values by simulating white-box models of home archetypes, that enable tuning of future grey-box models. Second, specify the heating variables that result in acceptable energy-use gaps between simulation of home archetype models and their typical measurements. Third, test if the retrofits of three Irish home archetypes under a typical occupant schedule, achieve national climate action targets.