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Title: Building energy simulation in real time through an open standard interface

Journal Article · · Energy and Buildings
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  1. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
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Building energy models (BEMs) are typically used for design and code compliance for new buildings and in the renovation of existing buildings to predict energy use. We present the increasing adoption of BEM as standard practice in the building industry presents an opportunity to extend the use of BEMs into construction, commissioning and operation. In 2009, the authors developed a real-time simulation framework to execute an EnergyPlus model in real time to improve building operation. This paper reports an enhancement of that real-time energy simulation framework. The previous version only works with software tools that implement the custom co-simulation interface of the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB), such as EnergyPlus, Dymola and TRNSYS. The new version uses an open standard interface, the Functional Mockup Interface (FMI), to provide a generic interface to any application that supports the FMI protocol. In addition, the new version utilizes the Simple Measurement and Actuation Profile (sMAP) tool as the data acquisition system to acquire, store and present data. Lastly, this paper introduces the updated architecture of the real-time simulation framework using FMI and presents proof-of-concept demonstration results which validate the new framework.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1436593
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1252031
Journal Information:
Energy and Buildings, Vol. 117, Issue C; ISSN 0378-7788
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 17 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (5)

A framework for simulation-based real-time whole building performance assessment journal August 2012
Co-simulation of building energy and control systems with the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed journal September 2011
EnergyPlus: creating a new-generation building energy simulation program journal April 2001
Development of a model predictive control framework through real-time building energy management system data journal October 2015
Continuous Commissioning Through Real-Time Simulation with a Building Energy Monitoring System journal June 2014

Cited By (4)

Energy performance gap of a nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB) in Denmark: the influence of occupancy modelling journal January 2020
Online Energy Simulator for building fault detection and diagnostics using dynamic energy performance model journal May 2018
Building simulation: Ten challenges journal April 2018
A Procedure to Perform Multi-Objective Optimization for Sustainable Design of Buildings journal November 2016

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Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
42 ENGINEERING
Building energy simulation
Real-time
Functional Mockup Interface
BCVTB
EnergyPlus