Efficient energy modelling of heterogeneous building portfolios

- This work investigates how to model a set of buildings to capture heterogeneity and variations.
- A set of university buildings is modelled with a normative energy calculation method.
- Modelling effort can be reduced by a uniform description of key parameters across buildings.

The paper reports the energy modelling process of 11 university buildings with the use of a normative energy calculation method. The broad aim of this exercise is to model a set of buildings efficiently so as to capture heterogeneity across buildings and minimize auditing requirements. First, energy model inputs are scrutinized and improved to better represent the actual use of the buildings. The second set of model improvements aim to identify and test those parameters that can be uniformly described across all the buildings, thus reducing overall modelling effort. Using sensitivity analysis of parameters per building, we demonstrate the validity of assigning a common range of values to key input parameters across the building portfolio. Gas and electricity consumption are analyzed separately. Our results show that for electricity consumption, a deeper sub-categorization of activities within buildings is important. On the other hand, accuracy of gas consumption relies on parameters associated with the building fabric.