EUI Study
Once you have a baseline thermal model with adjusted internal gains, you can explore a series of different upgrades to your building including envelope improvements as well as revised ventilation controls and thermostat settings. To start, please go over this video tutorial.
Task A: Envelope Upgrades
Explore different measures to improve the thermal performance of the building envelope including adding insulation to exterior walls and roof, trying different glazing types and adding external shading devices and/or dynamic blinds. Based on your explorations, select at least three upgrades that you want to pursue and present them using the ClimateStudio results comparison chart. Please also include your baseline and adjusted internal gains results. Figure 1 shows an example chart for the DOE Medium Office Building.
Figure 1: ClimateStudio EUI comparison chart for envelope upgrades
Table 1: Description of upgrade variants form Figure 1
Document you upgrades using a figure or table and comment on your findings. For example, Table 1 describes the Reduced Loads, Infiltration, Glazing and External Shading variants from Figure 1. The figure shows that electric lighting loads can be significantly reduced via a reduced lighting power density and photocell-controlled dimming. Reducing the infiltration by 30% has some positive impact but more decisive savings occur from introducing a better performing glazing and providing dynamic shading that reduces solar heat gains during the summer.
Task B: Ventilation controls and Temperature Setpoints
Explore a series of control strategies to reduce ventilation-related loads and relax temperature setpoints. Pick the most promising options that you want to implement going forward and document them via an EUI comparison chart and separate descriptions of each additional upgrade.
Figure 2: ClimateStudio EUI comparison chart for ventilation upgrades
Figure 2 shows that - for the Medium Office in Boston _ providing fresh air according to building occupancy significantly reduces heating loads. As expected, cooling loads are reduced through the introduction of an economizer system which uses outside air (free cooling) when available.
Tip: Good Modeling Practice - Once you are satisfied with an energy upgrade, save the zone template in the Rhino file so that you can retrieve it later.
