Energy modeling of two office buildings with data center for green building design

Energy simulation models are developed with EnergyPlus for two office buildings in a R&D center in Shanghai, China to evaluate the energy cost savings of green building design options compared with the baseline building. As a R&D center of an international IT corporation, there are data centers in the two buildings, which make them different from typical office buildings. The data centers house high energy consuming IT equipments and need 24 h air-conditioning every day all year round. In order to achieve energy cost savings, multiple energy efficiency strategies are employed for design proposed building, encompassing high performance building envelope, lighting system, and HVAC system. Through energy modeling, the design proposed options are compared to an ASHRAE 90.1-2004 compliant budget model to highlight energy cost savings versus “standard practice” and show the potential LEED™ Credit EA1—Optimize Energy Performance. Meanwhile, they are also compared to China Code model to figure out the energy cost savings versus the most popular practice conforming to China Public Building Energy Saving Design Standard. The whole building energy simulation results show that the yearly energy cost saving of the proposed design will be approximately 27% from China Code building and 21% from ASHRAE budget building, which can achieve 4 points for LEED credit due to energy performance optimization.