Understanding energy consumption in high-performance social housing buildings: A case study from Canada

This paper presents a case study of a recently built high-performance Canadian social housing building with the aim of comparing the expected and measured energy consumptions and to identify the parameters affecting the most the energy need. A monitoring system compiles at a 10-min frequency information related to the energy use and the thermal conditions observed in the building and its HVAC system. The building has the particularity of comprising two symmetric sections made of different timber structure systems. No significant differences of energy consumption were detected between the two parts of the buildings. However, a large variance was observed when comparing each dwelling individually regardless of their structures. The orientation of the dwelling also exhibited a minimal influence compared to these variations, suggesting that occupant behavior is the dominant factor explaining dwelling-to-dwelling variability and is thus critical for understanding energy use in residential buildings. Regression analysis showed that specific occupant actions, such as opening windows in winter or using electrical appliances, have a great impact on the energy balance of the apartments. In 2016, the performance gap between measured and expected total energy demand of the building was 74%. With the use of the large dataset coming from the building, it was possible to determine the causes behind this large gap for the reference building. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

本文介绍了一个对加拿大近期建成的高性能社会住房建筑的案例研究，目的是比较预期能耗和实测能耗，并确定对能源需求影响最大的参数。一个监测系统以10分钟的频率收集与建筑及其暖通空调系统中的能源使用和热状况相关的信息。该建筑的特殊之处在于它由两个采用不同木结构系统的对称部分组成。在建筑的两个部分之间未检测到能耗的显著差异。然而，当单独比较每个住宅（不论其结构如何）时，观察到了较大的差异。与这些差异相比，住宅的朝向也显示出极小的影响，这表明居住者的行为是解释住宅间差异的主导因素，因此对于理解住宅建筑的能源使用至关重要。回归分析表明，特定的居住者行为，例如在冬季开窗或使用电器，对公寓的能量平衡有很大影响。2016年，该建筑实测总能源需求与预期总能源需求之间的性能差距为74%。通过使用来自该建筑的大量数据集，有可能确定这座参考建筑存在如此大差距的原因。© 2017爱思唯尔有限公司。保留所有权利。