Improving the capabilities of the Town Energy Balance model with up-to-date building energy simulation algorithms: an application to a set of representative buildings in Paris

Buildings' energy systems release heat to the atmosphere that contributes to the urban heat island. In return, the energy demand from buildings depends on the meteorological conditions of their surroundings. Consequently, urban canopy models such as Town Energy Budget (TEB) have progressively included the representation of the main processes of building energetics: solar and internal heat gains, heat transmission through the enclosure and the heat exchange by infiltration and ventilation. The objective of this study is to extend the evaluation of the Building Energy Model (BEM) implemented in TEB. Five buildings representative of the morphological and thermal characteristics that can be encountered in European urban areas have been selected. The evaluation has been conducted with EnergyPlus building energy model and for two contrasted climates. The TEB model is able to estimate the heating and the cooling energy demand with an accuracy better than 5 kWh/m2/year for heating and 3 kWh/m2/year for cooling. This paper also discusses on the importance of computing the building's surrounding surface temperature for energy demand calculations. TEB is able to account for this effect whereas EnergyPlus assumes that building surroundings are at air temperature.