Comparison of Sensitivity Analysis Methods for Building Energy Simulations in Early Design Phases: Once-at-a-time (OAT) vs. Variance-based Methods

Abstract

It is well known that design decisions made during early building design phase greatly impact on the energy performance of the designed building. For more responsive and reliable decisions, using building energy simulation becomes an industry de-facto standard design process; after initial mass study, designers try to find the most energy saving design options over continuous simulation experiments by various design options. Often selecting model parameters and their design options follow the design guidelines [1]. However, there are no universal priority of energy sensitive parameters; a set of energy sensitive parameters varies upon climate, building type, building shape, range of design alternatives, etc.Sensitivity analysis offers a good guideline that is fitted to a specific building configuration. Although designers know the merit of sensitivity analysis, they don't have enough time for doing sensitivity analysis in every design situation, as well as only simulation experts trained with statistical background can produce reliable sensitivity analysis. Therefore sensitivity analysis is still too expensive to be a part of regular design process.