Simulation Studies of Building Energy Performance in Warm and Humid Climates

Abstract

This paper presents the results of computer simulation studies on energy performance of a typical highrise office building floor module of local design practice at Singapore. BLAST (Building Loads and Systems Thermodynamics) which is a comprehensive computer programme developed by the Construction Engineering Research Laboratory (CERL) of US Army Core of Engineers and TRY weather tape of 1967 for Singapore were used in these simulation studies. Hour by hour cooling load components and system and zone energy consumption on a design day and monthly totals for one full year were calculated. As envelope design will have a considerable impact on a building's energy performance, effect of design parameters such as glass area, aspect ratio and orientation, shading devices, and wall exterior surface solar absorptance, on fabric load has been studied, for a design day. An improved energy efficient envelope was arrived at by a combination of the envelope design elements and computer simulation studies of a design day and annual energy performance are repeated. The results indicate that through envelope design alone it is possible to reduce fabric load by 57 percent. However it would bring about only 16 percent reduction in total energy consumption and 15 percent in peak energy demand. As expected latent load forms a fairly high percentage, (37 to 43%) of the cooling energy demand because of high humidity conditions.