Scenario modelling: A holistic environmental and energy management method for building operation optimisation

Abstract

Building managers have specific duties and certain outputs that are required of them. Without the necessary data, information, tools, and time, they are unable to adequately meet their organisational goals. Scenario modelling enables explicit and unambiguous coupling of building functions with other pivotal aspects of building operation in a method that specifically considers the education and technical expertise of building managers. This new method captures, transforms, and communicates the complex interdependencies of environmental and energy management in buildings through an easily navigable, holistic, and reproducible checking mechanism that compares actual performance with predicted performance and completes the “plan-do-check-act” cycle for building managers. Most important, the structured nature of this method caters to the diverse profile of building managers, making it applicable for widespread deployment. This paper demonstrates the benefit of using the new method by examining its application to a performance analysis of two existing buildings.