Energy efficiency assessment of a public building resourcing a BIM model

Abstract

The construction sector high energy consumption and GHG emissions lead to the development of easier methodologies to achieve low carbon buildings. Currently, the use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is growing in the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation (AECO) sector, and it assumes relevance in buildings energy simulation. Therefore, this work aims to explore the potential and limitations of applying BIM to energy management and simulation in the operation life cycle phase of a service building, and comparing it with a specific and customized tool for energy efficiency assessment of public buildings. A service building BIM model was developed in Autodesk Revit showing its utility when used as an asset for storing and organize energy-related data. The add-in Energy Analysis for Autodesk Revit allowed automatically generating the Building Energy Model (BEM) from the BIM model and performing a cloud-based simulation in Autodesk Green Building Studio (GBS). The energy consumption results obtained in GBS were compared with the results obtained with the energy simulation tool ECO.AP developed in the Portuguese National Laboratory of Civil Engineering (LNEC). It was possible to infer that the input limitations of GBS, mainly in HVAC systems customization, compromise the representation and energy performance evaluation of the building under actual operating conditions, making GBS more adequate for early buildings life cycle stages where energy simulation results may support decisions that aim to improve the buildings energy performance during the operation phase.