[Equest-users] Scale modeling

[Stefano Moret]

Dear all,

I've recently played around quite a bit with E-quest to simulate the effect of dynamic fenestration on building energy consumption.
For these simulations I've been using a very simple office model with a skylight on the top as a test-bed for my calculations (with default system for HVAC and daylighting controls with dimming for lights) but, observing the values I'm obtaining in output, I see that the values I obtain for lighting, cooling and heating consumption make sense relatively, i.e. if compared to themselves in different conditions, but are sometimes of totally different order of magnitude if compared to each other (lighting/cooling loads are often much higher than heating, by orders of magnitude), especially when scaling up the model to bigger sizes. This way, it's very difficult to see the effect of a variable change on the total energy consumption.

I know the model I'm using is very idealized, but is there any variable that I can act on in order to obtain a model which has energy consumption values more similar to a real building? For example, is there a "suggested" size of the building that gives better results? Or maybe simulating a single room in a large building gives more realistic results than the single room alone?
My point is that I would like to have a model whose results in scale might be consistent when applied to bigger buildings.

Thanks for your hints and suggestions,
Stefano

--

Stefano Moret
California Lighting Technology Center<http://cltc.ucdavis.edu/>
University of California, Davis
633 Pena Drive
Davis, CA 95618

530-747-3846
smoret at ucdavis.edu<mailto:smoret at ad3.ucdavis.edu>

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