Advanced occupant behaviour patterns for the next generation of Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs)
Creators: name: Bores, Marta Sampedro
name: Boneta, María Fernández
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Occupant behaviour
Behaviour modelling
Energy modelling
Building performance simulation
EnergyPlus
Energy Performance Certificate

description: Occupant behaviour is now widely recognised as one of the most important factors contributing to the uncertainty of building performance. The operating characteristics and the occupants' use of space are closely related to the energy needs and consumption of buildings. This work was developed in order to explore the possible implementation of advanced occupant models into the Assessment Method 3 developed under the ePANACEA methodology for the use of calibrated models based on dynamic simulation for Energy Performance Certification of buildings. The work carried out is structured in three clearly differentiated phases: Firstly, a research has been carried out on the current state of the art in the implementation of user behaviour in dynamic simulation models. In this field, the Annex 66 project in its Subtask D develops a framework for XML schemas and a software module with occupant behaviour models that enables the implementation of stochastic occupant behaviour in dynamic simulation models. Tianzhen Hong (leader of this subtask D) together with his team, have developed the Occupancy Simulator tool that uses Markov chain model to simulate occupancy in office buildings. The application simulates occupant movement and generates occupant schedules for each space. These schedules can be implemented in EnergyPlus which is the tool that will be used in the development of the Assessment Method 3 within the context of the ePANACEA project. The second part of the work evaluates the energy performance of a static office model (i.e. the common practice in current simulation models) against six stochastic behavioural models. Each of the six stochastic models will evaluate the sensitivity of the results on each of the following variables: (1) Occupancy (presence), (2) Lighting, (3) Plug-in equipment, (4) Window shade, (5) Operable window and (6) Thermostat. The individualised study of these behaviours has been carried out with an occupant behaviour functional mock-up unit (obFMU) that enables co-simulation with EnergyPlus program implementing functional mock-up interface (FMI). The components detailed in the development of the obFMU include an overview of the DNAS (drivers-needs-actions-systems) ontology and the occupant behavior eXtensible Markup Language (obXML) schema, in addition to details on the creation of the obFMU that contains the co-simulation interface, the data model and solvers [8]. The third phase of the work has been focused on the impact assessment derived from taking actual occupant behaviour into account through a case study of residential typology. After the research carried out regarding advance occupant modelling and its testing and implementation for an office building case study, due to the difficulty to find existing and robust models for the residential typology because of the variety of scenarios, it is decided to apply a different and cost-effective approach for the residential sector within the ePANACEA project context. Taking advantage of the ICTs and increasingly common accessibility to actual building data, this approach is focused on the use of smart meter data and some other additional specific measurements, that supported by user interviews, allow a detailed user behaviour modelling for dynamic simulations. This approach pursues to support the starting point for the calibration procedure implemented within ePANACEA methodology in order to drastically reduce the performance gap between theoretical and actual energy use within the EPC context.