03410nas a2200409 4500008004100000245008500041210006900126260001200195520213600207653000902343653002502352653002202377653002002399653001902419653002302438653003302461653003902494653003202533653001302565653002102578100002202599700001902621700002202640700002102662700002002683700001702703700002302720700002202743700002102765700002002786700002302806700001902829700001502848700002802863700002002891856008902911 2017 eng d00aSmall and Medium Building Efficiency Toolkit and Community Demonstration Program0 aSmall and Medium Building Efficiency Toolkit and Community Demon c03/20173 a

Small commercial buildings in the United States consume 47 percent of all primary energy consumed in the building sector. Retrofitting small and medium commercial buildings may pose a steep challenge for owners, as many lack the expertise and resources to identify and evaluate cost-effective energy retrofit strategies. To address this problem, this project developed the Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES), an energy retrofit analysis toolkit that calculates the energy use of a building, identifies and evaluates retrofit measures based on energy savings, energy cost savings, and payback. The CBES Toolkit includes a web app for end users and the CBES Application Programming Interface for integrating CBES with other energy software tools. The toolkit provides a rich feature set, including the following:

  1. Energy Benchmarking providing an Energy Star score
  2. Load Shape Analysis to identify potential building operation improvements
  3. Preliminary Retrofit Analysis which uses a custom developed pre-simulated database
  4. Detailed Retrofit Analysis which utilizes real time EnergyPlus simulations

In a parallel effort the project team developed technologies to measure outdoor airflow rate; commercialization and use would avoid both excess energy use from over ventilation and poor indoor air quality resulting from under ventilation.

If CBES is adopted by California’s statewide small office and retail buildings, by 2030 the state can anticipate 1,587 gigawatt hours of electricity savings, 356 megawatts of non-coincident peak demand savings, 30.2 megatherms of natural gas savings, $227 million of energy-related cost savings, and reduction of emissions by 757,866 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. In addition, consultant costs will be reduced in the retrofit analysis process.

CBES contributes to the energy savings retrofit field by enabling a straightforward and uncomplicated decision-making process for small and medium business owners and leveraging different levels of assessment to match user background, preference, and data availability.

10aCBES10acommercial buildings10aenergy efficiency10aenergy modeling10aenergy savings10aindoor air quality10aindoor environmental quality10aoutdoor air measurement technology10aoutdoor airflow intake rate10aretrofit10aventilation rate1 aPiette, Mary, Ann1 aHong, Tianzhen1 aFisk, William, J.1 aBourassa, Norman1 aChan, Wanyu, R.1 aChen, Yixing1 aCheung, H.Y., Iris1 aHotchi, Toshifumi1 aKloss, Margarita1 aLee, Sang, Hoon1 aPrice, Phillip, N.1 aSchetrit, Oren1 aSun, Kaiyu1 aTaylor-Lange, Sarah, C.1 aZhang, Rongpeng uhttps://simulationresearch.lbl.gov/publications/small-and-medium-building-efficiency02293nas a2200241 4500008004100000245016600041210006900207520145100276653002201727653001801749653002101767653002301788653002501811653002201836653001501858100001401873700001201887700001701899700001901916700001401935700001501949856008701964 2017 eng d00aSpatial Distribution of Internal Heat Gains: A Probabilistic Representation and Evaluation of Its Influence on Cooling Equipment Sizing in Large Office Buildings0 aSpatial Distribution of Internal Heat Gains A Probabilistic Repr3 a

Internal heat gains from occupants, lighting, and plug loads are significant components of the space cooling load in an office building. Internal heat gains vary with time and space. The spatial diversity is significant, even for spaces with the same function in the same building. The stochastic nature of internal heat gains makes determining the peak cooling load to size air-conditioning systems a challenge. The traditional conservative practice of considering the largest internal heat gain among spaces and applying safety factors overestimates the space cooling load, which leads to oversized air-conditioning equipment and chiller plants. In this study, a field investigation of several large office buildings in China led to the development of a new probabilistic approach that represents the spatial diversity of the design internal heat gain of each tenant as a probability distribution function. In a large office building, a central chiller plant serves all air handling units (AHUs), with each AHU serving one or more floors of the building. Therefore, the spatial diversity should be considered differently when the peak cooling loads to size the AHUs and chillers are calculated. The proposed approach considers two different levels of internal heat gains to calculate the peak cooling loads and size the AHUs and chillers in order to avoid oversizing, improve the overall operating efficiency, and thus reduce energy use.

10aair handling unit10achiller plant10aequipment sizing10ainternal heat gain10aspatial distribution10aspatial diversity10astochastic1 aZhang, Qi1 aYan, Da1 aAn, Jingjing1 aHong, Tianzhen1 aTian, Wei1 aSun, Kaiyu uhttps://simulationresearch.lbl.gov/publications/spatial-distribution-internal-heat02035nas a2200181 4500008004100000245009300041210006900134520139300203653002101596653002201617653003601639653001901675653001501694653002201709100001501731700001901746856008801765 2016 eng d00aA Simulation Approach to Estimate Energy Savings Potential of Occupant Behavior Measures0 aSimulation Approach to Estimate Energy Savings Potential of Occu3 a

Occupant behavior in buildings is a leading factor influencing energy use in buildings. Low-cost behavioral solutions have demonstrated significant potential energy savings. Estimating the behavioral savings potential is important for a more effective design of behavior change interventions, which in turn will support more effective energy-efficiency policies. This study introduces a simulation approach to estimate the energy savings potential of occupant behavior measures. First it defines five typical occupant behavior measures in office buildings, then simulates and analyzes their individual and integrated impact on energy use in buildings. The energy performance of the five behavior measures was evaluated using EnergyPlus simulation for a real office building across four typical U.S. climates and two vintages. The Occupancy Simulator was used to simulate the occupant movement in each zone with inputs from the site survey of the case building. Based on the simulation results, the occupant behavior measures can achieve overall site energy savings as high as 22.9% for individual measures and up to 41.0% for integrated measures. Although energy savings of behavior measures would vary depending upon many factors, the presented simulation approach is robust and can be adopted for other studies aiming to quantify occupant behavior impact on building performance.

10abehavior measure10aBehavior Modeling10abuilding performance simulation10aenergy savings10aenergyplus10aoccupant behavior1 aSun, Kaiyu1 aHong, Tianzhen uhttps://simulationresearch.lbl.gov/publications/simulation-approach-estimate-energy02296nas a2200193 4500008003900000245011200039210006900151520161300220653002401833653002401857653002201881653002201903653002301925653002401948100001501972700001901987700001502006856008102021 2014 d00aStochastic Modeling of Overtime Occupancy and Its Application in Building Energy Simulation and Calibration0 aStochastic Modeling of Overtime Occupancy and Its Application in3 a

Overtime is a common phenomenon around the world. Overtime drives both internal heat gains from occupants, lighting and plug-loads, and HVAC operation during overtime periods. Overtime leads to longer occupancy hours and extended operation of building services systems beyond normal working hours, thus overtime impacts total building energy use. Current literature lacks methods to model overtime occupancy because overtime is stochastic in nature and varies by individual occupants and by time. To address this gap in the literature, this study aims to develop a new stochastic model based on the statistical analysis of measured overtime occupancy data from an office building. A binomial distribution is used to represent the total number of occupants working overtime, while an exponential distribution is used to represent the duration of overtime periods. The overtime model is used to generate overtime occupancy schedules as an input to the energy model of a second office building. The measured and simulated cooling energy use during the overtime period is compared in order to validate the overtime model. A hybrid approach to energy model calibration is proposed and tested, which combines ASHRAE Guideline 14 for the calibration of the energy model during normal working hours, and a proposed KS test for the calibration of the energy model during overtime. The developed stochastic overtime model and the hybrid calibration approach can be used in building energy simulations to improve the accuracy of results, and better understand the characteristics of overtime in office buildings.

10abuilding energy use10abuilding simulation10amodel calibration10aoccupant behavior10aovertime occupancy10astochastic modeling1 aSun, Kaiyu1 aHong, Tianzhen1 aGuo, Siyue uhttps://simulationresearch.lbl.gov/publications/stochastic-modeling-overtime