Building performance characterisation and assessment based on in-situ measurements

Decreasing the energy use in buildings can only be achieved by an accurate characterisation of the as-built energy performance of buildings. This is mainly for two reasons. First of all, despite the ever more stringent energy legislation for new and renovated buildings, monitoring the actual energy performances reveals in many cases a significant performance gap with the theoretically designed targets. Secondly, the ever increasing need for integration of renewables stresses the existing energy systems which can be remedied by using intelligent grids that are aware of the actual status of the buildings in a district. A reliable characterisation and assessment of the actual performance of buildings can only be realised by optimised in-situ measurements combined with statistical dynamic data analysis techniques. The current project will focus on the development of characterisation methods for residential buildings based on on-board monitoring techniques. This project aims for quality assessment methods, intends to pinpoint the most relevant actual building performance indicators, such as the overall heat loss coefficient, the energy efficiency of a system,… and identification methods, translating the dynamic behaviour of a building into a simplified model that can be used in model predictive control, fault detection, optimisation of district systems, … .

Keywords:actual energy performance, performance gap, in situ measurements, compliance checking, building characterisation

Disciplines:Structural engineering, Other civil and building engineering