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Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation
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Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 8956

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Giovanni Pernigotto

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Engineering, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Piazza Università 5, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Interests: building physics; building energy performance; building performance simulation; urban simulation; indoor environmental quality; weather data for building simulation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Prof. Dr. Andrea Gasparella

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Faculty of Science and Technology, Piazza Università, 5 - 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Interests: building physics and HVAC systems
Dr. Marco Caniato

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Faculty of Science and Technology, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100 Bozen, Italy
Interests: indoor comfort; acoustics; impaired individual comfort perception; acoustic and thermal material characterization; building elements; numerical simulations; sustainability; timber buildings
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent decades, Building Performance Simulation (BPS) has been developing into a fundamental tool to allow for the design of high-performance buildings, investigating the potential of new solutions regarding the building envelope, the HVAC system, and the overall control and regulation of the building system.

From an energy perspective, Building Performance Simulation can provide an invaluable support to building professionals for both the design of new high-performance buildings and the renovation of existing buildings. Indeed, when applied in the early stages of the design process, BPS can facilitate a thorough exploration of the impact of alternatives related to geometry, the characteristics of the building fabrics and the typology of the HVAC system. Furthermore, coupling BPS tools with optimization techniques, it is possible to select those combinations of features, which can, for instance, maximize the building energy efficiency and minimize its operation and commissioning costs. The same approach is also often exploited in the context of building energy retrofitting, facilitating the selection of the most promising energy efficiency measures and allowing the definition of effective public subsidization strategies. From that perspective, building simulation supports not only building designers and practitioners but also the policy makers, providing robust grounds for the definition of new energy policies aimed at renovating the existing building stock into nearly-zero energy buildings, net-zero energy buildings or smart buildings.

As is also remarked upon in the legislation of several countries, high-performance buildings should be characterized not only by their very low energy demands but also by their high levels of indoor environmental quality, encompassing thermal hygrometric, acoustic and visual comfort, as well as indoor air quality. Indeed, adequate indoor environmental quality is not only important for the wellbeing of the occupants but also for increasing their task performance and productivity, especially in educational and office buildings. Additionally, in this case, a variety of building simulation tools can play an important role in the design or redesign process, allowing us to identify potential issues and to implement correction interventions in order to enhance indoor comfort conditions for the occupants while maintaining a low energy demand.

This Special Issue, “Applications of Building Performance Simulation”, aims to collect research papers and reviews on recent trends and developments in Building Performance Simulation, with a particular focus on the application of building simulation for the design, redesign or operation of high-performance buildings. Research topics of interest for this Special Issue range from the simulation of the performance of elements and components of the building envelope and the HVAC system, to the analysis of the overall performance of the building system, considering energy and/or comfort aspects and also including the role played by building control strategies.

Dr. Giovanni Pernigotto
Prof. Dr. Andrea Gasparella
Dr. Marco Caniato
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • building performance simulation
  • building energy simulation
  • building energy performance
  • nearly zero energy buildings
  • building renovation
  • building performance optimization
  • smart buildings
  • building envelope
  • HVAC system
  • building management

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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27 pages, 13235 KiB  
Article
Examining Occupant-Comfort Responses to Indoor Humidity Ratio in Conventional and Vernacular Dwellings: A Rural Indian Case Study
by Suchi Priyadarshani, Roshan R. Rao, Monto Mani and Daniel Maskell
Energies 2023, 16(19), 6843; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16196843 - 27 Sep 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1210
Abstract
Optimum indoor humidity is often associated with comfort and overall well-being. Occupant comfort is often evaluated with a focus on “thermal comfort” using the PMV (predicted mean vote), PDD (predicted percentage of dissatisfied), and adaptive thermal comfort models. Humidity-determined comfort parameters, like skin [...] Read more.
Optimum indoor humidity is often associated with comfort and overall well-being. Occupant comfort is often evaluated with a focus on “thermal comfort” using the PMV (predicted mean vote), PDD (predicted percentage of dissatisfied), and adaptive thermal comfort models. Humidity-determined comfort parameters, like skin and respiratory comfort, are well acknowledged in the scientific community, but strangely not considered for indoor comfort computations. This study proposes a new computational approach for describing and evaluating humidity-related skin comfort in buildings using skin temperature, evaporative loss, and skin wettedness as critical parameters. The Development and validation of the computational model was demonstrated through a case study in a rural Indian context. The case study involves real-time monitoring of indoor environmental parameters and humidity-determined occupant comfort votes recorded through a novel aggregated humidity comfort vote method. The simulation results were compared with the community comfort/health survey. It was observed that, even at neutral skin temperatures, an increase in skin wettedness increases the thermal sensation vote. Clothing varies according to gender, community, and personal preferences, influencing physiological parameters which determine comfort. The acceptable humidity ratio was found to be in the range of 17.4 to 22.6 g-wv/kg-da for Indian participants. Including humidity-related comfort parameters in building simulation tools would aid in selecting building materials for improved indoor comfort. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation)
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21 pages, 4831 KiB  
Article
In Situ Measurement of Wall Thermal Properties: Parametric Investigation of the Heat Flow Meter Methods through Virtual Experiments Data
by Andrea Alongi, Luca Sala, Adriana Angelotti and Livio Mazzarella
Energies 2023, 16(10), 4247; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16104247 - 22 May 2023
Viewed by 1091
Abstract
Energy retrofit of existing buildings is based on the assessment of the starting performance of the envelope. The procedure for the in situ measurement of thermal conductance is described in the ISO 9869-1:2014, which provides two techniques for data processing: the average method [...] Read more.
Energy retrofit of existing buildings is based on the assessment of the starting performance of the envelope. The procedure for the in situ measurement of thermal conductance is described in the ISO 9869-1:2014, which provides two techniques for data processing: the average method (AM) and the dynamic method (DM). This work studies their effectiveness using virtual data from numerical simulations based on a finite difference model applied to different wall kinds, considering winter and summer boundary conditions alternatively (Italian Milan-Linate TMY). The estimated thermal conductances are compared to the reference theoretical values. The main purposes are: (i) defining the shortest test duration that provides acceptable results; (ii) assess the reliability of the criteria provided by the standard to evaluate the measurement quality; (iii) evaluate the sensitivity of both methods to variables such as wall properties, boundary conditions and others more specific to the DM (namely, the number of time constants and linear equations). The AM always provides acceptable estimates in winter (−3.1% ÷ 10% error), with better outcomes when indoor heat flux is considered, except for the highly insulated wall, but is not effective in summer, despite the fulfillment of the acceptance criteria for the highly insulated wall. The DM provides improvements in both seasons (0.05% ÷ 8.6% absolute values of error), for most virtual samples, and requires shorter sampling periods, even below the 3 days limit suggested by the standard. The test on the confidence interval indicated by the ISO 9869-1:2014 is not reliable and measurements are sensitive to the number of linear equations, that is left to the user’s discretion without strict indications. This work suggests a possible approach for overcoming this issue, which requires deeper future investigation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation)
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17 pages, 4208 KiB  
Article
Comparison between Predictive and Measurement Methods of Speech Intelligibility for Educational Rooms of Different Sizes with and without HVAC Systems
by Samantha Di Loreto, Fabio Serpilli, Valter Lori and Costanzo Di Perna
Energies 2023, 16(6), 2719; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16062719 - 14 Mar 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1779
Abstract
Heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems represent one of the main noise sources inside classrooms. This explain why HVAC systems require careful design, competent installation and balancing, and regular maintenance. Many factors influence the classroom acoustical design, such as air handlers or [...] Read more.
Heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems represent one of the main noise sources inside classrooms. This explain why HVAC systems require careful design, competent installation and balancing, and regular maintenance. Many factors influence the classroom acoustical design, such as air handlers or fans, the velocity of air inside the classroom, as well as the size and acoustical treatment of ducts, returns, and diffusers. Acoustic parameters, including background-noise levels, reverberation time, and intelligibility, were analyzed in 17 classrooms at the Università Politecnica in the Marche region. The study of intelligibility was performed by measuring the objective parameters in situ and using prediction methods to determine the intelligibility score. The relationship between speech intelligibility measurements and speech intelligibility calculation has been studied. The relationship between the STI values with the background-noise levels and the reverberation time was also studied. This research shows that a comparison between predictive methods and measurement methods results in speech intelligibility for classrooms of different sizes with and without HVAC systems. The current method of calculating the voice transmission index (STI), proposed by national and international standards, has been used to determine speech intelligibility scores in classrooms. The results show that the calculation tool has computational robustness allowing its use in preliminary evaluations of speech intelligibility, design of the optimal type of school buildings, and sound amplification systems in classrooms that comply with Italian regulations. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation)
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13 pages, 2853 KiB  
Article
On the Effect of the Time Interval Base and Home Appliance on the Renewable Quota of a Building in an Alpine Location
by Margherita Povolato, Alessandro Prada, Sara Verones and Paolo Baggio
Energies 2023, 16(1), 384; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16010384 - 29 Dec 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1606
Abstract
The European goal of decarbonization drives design toward high-performance buildings that maximize the use of renewable sources. Therefore, the European RED II Directive and Italian law raise the minimum renewable share required for new buildings and major renovations. Currently, the renewable energy ratio [...] Read more.
The European goal of decarbonization drives design toward high-performance buildings that maximize the use of renewable sources. Therefore, the European RED II Directive and Italian law raise the minimum renewable share required for new buildings and major renovations. Currently, the renewable energy ratio (RER) is used for the mandatory verification, obtained with a quasi-steady state calculation on a monthly basis, while much of the scientific literature uses self-consumption factor (SCF) and load coverage factor (LCF) often calculated through dynamic simulation. However, the use of a monthly balance implies the use of the national grid as a virtual battery through the net metering mechanism. The actual share of renewable coverage in the absence of expensive electric storage will necessarily be lower. The link between the different indices, the effect of the time base used in the calculation as well as the actual renewable share achieved by buildings, considering also plug loads not in the regulatory verification framework, are still open issues. This work analyzes the actual renewable share achievable for a new building in a heating-dominated climate, i.e., the mountainous area of the municipality of Trento. The renewable share is evaluated through a coupled dynamic simulation of the building and the energy systems. The results show that the RER decreases by 13% and 15% when switching from monthly to instantaneous balance in the case without and with additional home appliance loads, respectively. Similarly, simulations show how the time interval base affects the difference between the RER index and the LCF of PV energy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation)
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Review

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31 pages, 1598 KiB  
Review
A Literature Review on Methods and Metrics for the Analysis of Outdoor Air Displacement Conditions in the Urban Environment
by Ritesh Wankhade, Giovanni Pernigotto and Michele Larcher
Energies 2023, 16(6), 2577; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16062577 - 9 Mar 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2067
Abstract
The ongoing pandemic has driven the attention of both policy makers and professionals of the building sector towards the need for proper ventilation of the indoor environment. Despite accurate ventilation control only being available with mechanical ventilation systems, in several countries worldwide the [...] Read more.
The ongoing pandemic has driven the attention of both policy makers and professionals of the building sector towards the need for proper ventilation of the indoor environment. Despite accurate ventilation control only being available with mechanical ventilation systems, in several countries worldwide the renovation of indoor air relies mainly on natural solutions. In this context, in the design of new or renovated buildings, conventional natural ventilation rates are typically assumed to be in agreement with available technical standards, sometimes regardless of the actual external conditions. For instance, local wind speed and direction, as well as buoyancy-driven air displacements, are not considered, even if they can significantly affect the ventilation efficacy for the designed buildings. Moreover, the local outdoor temperature and the presence of pollutants are rarely accounted for, even though they can represent interesting inputs not only for naturally ventilated buildings but also for mechanical ventilation systems. In the framework described above, this review paper aims to provide an overview of the current state-of-the-art of the research regarding air displacement and conditions in the urban context, focusing on the main methods, parameters and metrics to consider in order to ensure a deeper and more accurate modelling of natural ventilation potential in the urban built environment. The analysis of the literature includes both experimental and numerical studies. As regards the latter ones, the features of the chosen urban areas—real or parametric ones—the adopted turbulence models and the indexes calculated as simulation outputs were analysed, with the purpose of defining a common framework to support future extensive numerical studies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Applications of Building Energy Performance Simulation)
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