Abstract
This study applied the normalisation method that enabled to compare the energy performance of buildings from European and Japanese climates. A reference office building was simulated with national input data and weather file in order to estimate the thermal conductance of building model and heating degree-days for a reference climate. Based on simulated results, economic insulation thickness and thermal transmittance of windows for all climates were determined. A reference office building corresponding to Japanese ZEB Ready performance was moved with this method to Estonian and French climates. The results compared to national NZEB requirements and EC NZEB Nordic and Oceanic recommendations. It was found that the Japanese ZEB Ready building configuration with air source heat pump was very close to EC NZEB recommendations. However, in the case of district heating and gas-boiler heat sources, it was needed to improve Japanese ZEB Ready building configuration in order to meet EC NZEB recommendations. Estonian NZEB requirement met EC recommendation with both heat sources, but French NZEB requirement was much less ambitious.
Highlights
The comparison of energy performance requirement in buildings from different locations is difficult due to the variances of building parameters, national input values, regulation of indoor thermal comfort
This study developed a building simulation method, where heating degree-days (HDD) was determined from the thermal conductance of the building and simulated energy need for heating corresponding to the reference climate
The results generated economical insulation thickness for another climate. This method overcame the complexity of selecting a base temperature needed in HDD calculation, which was addressed in previous studies [6, 9]
Summary
The comparison of energy performance requirement in buildings from different locations is difficult due to the variances of building parameters, national input values, regulation of indoor thermal comfort. Keeping the same input parameters do not ensure a similar amount of energy saving in buildings due to the effect of climatic parameters. Heating and cooling needs in buildings are mainly influenced by the climatic parameters such as dry and wet bulb temperature, and solar radiation [1, 2]. Degree-day method based on air temperature has been used in order to find out the energy use in buildings [1]. A constant base temperature could not account the dynamic behaviours of weather effects that might lead to considerable errors [3]. Dynamic energy simulation models could be used for estimating the energy use in buildings, which accounted for the dynamics of weather parameters [4, 5]
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