Energy Calibration: Developing a novel methodology to calibrate building energy performance of social housing estates – Building diagnostics, energy audit and energy forecasting

As explained in Chapter Seven, findings from general survey analyses, thermal comfort surveys, on-site monitoring and in-situ measurements indicate a high risk of summertime overheating across the flats pinpointed for our survey from the total sample group. This chapter primarily considers dynamic thermal modelling and simulation using Integrated Environmental Solutions (IES) software to further examine the potential of summertime overheating in the social housing development. By assessing the hours of overheating experienced, dynamic thermal modelling and simulations were performed. This was due to the limited period (six weeks) in which environmental monitoring was conducted at different times of the day during the survey period, which may account for different thermal preference votes (TPVs) and thermal sensation votes (TSVs) observed in Chapter Seven, in accordance with optimum predicted mean votes’ (PMVs) threshold levels, particularly in the surveyed flats. In this section, simulations and calibration studies are examined according to the recommended international benchmarks and criteria for assessing overheating and occupants’ thermal comfort, taking occupants’ real-life experiences on energy use into consideration. Survey findings reflect that three-fourths (73%) of the participants found their indoor air environment thermally uncomfortable in the south-facing RTBs at the time the survey was conducted. In the calibration analysis, the south-facing RTBs were chosen as the base-case representative building in order to investigate existing energy performance of representative flat units for further energy simulations.