Whole-building calibrated energy performance simulation towards energy sufficiency and net zero carbon. Case study of a medium-sized hotel

Abstract

The Performance Gap between design/rating and operational energy consumption of buildings results from prescriptive approaches for estimation of energy consumption using regulated loads, simplified steady-state models and assumption of Notional/Reference Buildings. The increasingly stringent requirements on energy efficiency/sufficiency and emissions in schemes such as the Future Homes Standard and NABERS-UK for offices, aimed at achieving Net Zero UK building stock, necessitates performance-based approaches that include unregulated loads and post-occupancy energy epidemiology in benchmarking the energy performance of different building typologies.

This paper contributes to benchmarking the energy performance of hotels using an existing medium-sized hotel in London UK, as Case Study (CSB). A whole-building dynamic thermal model of the CSB was done in IESVE software and calibrated with actual occupancy, energy consumption and envelope construction/thermal data. Simulation of the model with contemporary Meteonorm weather file gave total electricity and natural gas consumption of 144.58MWh and 158.59MWh respectively, while 𝐂𝐎𝟐 emission was 53.17t 𝐂𝐎𝟐𝐞. IPMVP verification of the hourly-simulated and measured electricity consumption showed NMBE (-5.04%) and CvRMSE (8.9%). The 𝐂𝐎𝟐 Factors were 0.19kg.𝐂𝐎𝟐/kWh for (electricity) and 0.20kg.𝐂𝐎𝟐/kWh (heat), both values corresponding to the reported UK 𝐂𝐎𝟐 Factors of 0.19kg.𝐂𝐎𝟐 /kWh (electricity) and 0.20kg 𝐂𝐎𝟐/kWh @NCV (natural gas) for 2022.