On the applicability of various levels of detail for occupant behavior representation and modeling in building performance simulation

Occupant behavior(OB)is one of the significant sources of uncertainty in building performance simulation.While OB modeling has received increased attention in the past decade,research on the degree of granularity or level of detail(LoD)required for representing occupants is still in the nascent stages.This paper analyzes the modeling and applicability of three LoDs to represent occupants in building performance assessment.A medium-sized prototype office building located in Chicago,Illinois is used as the simulation case study.Ten occupant-centric attributes are adopted to develop the LoDs for OB representation.We first demonstrate the different modeling approaches required for simulating the three fidelity levels.Later,we illustrate the suitability of the developed LoDs in supporting six building performance use cases across different lifecycle stages.This study intends to provide guidance for the building simulation community on appropriate OB representation to support various use cases.

Application and evaluation of a pattern-based building energy model calibration method using public building datasets

Building performance simulation has been adopted to support decision making in the building life cycle.An essential issue is to ensure a building energy simulation model can capture the reality and complexity of buildings and their systems in both the static characteristics and dynamic operations.Building energy model calibration is a technique that takes various types of measured performance data(e.g.,energy use)and tunes key model parameters to match the simulated results with the actual measurements.This study performed an application and evaluation of an automated pattern-based calibration method on commercial building models that were generated based on characteristics of real buildings.A public building dataset that includes high-level building attributes(e.g.,building type,vintage,total floor area,number of stories,zip code)of 111 buildings in San Francisco,California,USA,was used to generate building models in EnergyPlus.Monthly level energy use calibrations were then conducted by comparing building model results against the actual buildings’monthly electricity and natural gas consumption.The results showed 57 out of 111 buildings were successfully calibrated against actual buildings,while the remaining buildings showed opportunities for future calibration improvements.Enhancements to the pattern-based model calibration method are identified to expand its use for:(1)central heating,ventilation and air conditioning(HVAC)systems with chillers,(2)space heating and hot water heating with electricity sources,(3)mixed-use building types,and(4)partially occupied buildings.