Whole Building Energy Use

Spring 2008 “Applications in Sustainable Design” Graduate/ Undergraduate Seminar

Whole Building Energy Use

Investigate methods/tools of simulating whole building energy use, and use the results of the tools to optimize the project’s design through comparing it with local and national benchmarks.

• course and project outline

1. To build a model of the project in eQUEST, using the design development wizard.

2. To simulate the whole year energy usage of the project, and to extract the “Monthly energy consumption by end use” and “annual energy consumption by end use” summary reports.

3. To calculate the Energy Use Intensity (EUI) for the project in kWh/ft2 or in Btu/ft2.

4. To discuss the different end uses of energy in the project and identify possible strategies of reducing them.

5.Using the EPA “target finder” tool, to identify the site & source energy use intensity for the project as well as its projected CO2 emissions.

6. To discuss the energy use intensity of the project and how it compares with conventional buildings of similar type and location as well as with high performance buildings (top 10%) as defined in the target finder tool.

7.To identify possible design modifications (if needed) to improve the performance of the building relative to the benchmark.

Students were required to submit a report describing the analysis process and conclusions supported by images from the ECOTECT analysis and RADIANCE rendering. Conclusions for each project were evaluated by the instructor and exhibited/discussed in class.

The assignment was evaluated based on the percentage of improvement in the building’s EUI compared to average energy usage for buildings of similar location, type, and size as identified by the Target Finder database.