Prototype College Building Energy Model: Building Characteristics and Energy Simulation Results

Technical Report · Fri Jul 01 04:00:00 EDT 2022

DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1878673· OSTI ID:1878673

Bae, Yeonjin ^[1]; Yoon, Yeobeom ^[1]; Malhotra, Mini ^[1]; Jung, Sungkyun ^[1]; Im, Piljae ^[1]

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1. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

The US Department of Energy supports the development of commercial building energy codes and standards. To support commercial building energy research activities and the development of commercial building energy codes and standards, continuous efforts have been made to convert 16 prototype building models, which cover 80% of US commercial building floor space, to OpenStudio prototype buildings. Additionally, the suite of prototype building models was expanded to include the addition of new building prototype models (e.g., courthouse, college building). Multiple sources, including databases, documented projects, and personal communications, were used to define the prototype college building, and a 4-story with 69,063 ft² building was considered as the prototype college building to represent an average-sized college building in the United States. To represent realistic occupancy schedules and increase the granularity of information, actual class reservation schedules were collected and used. This report documents the building and system characteristics of the prototype college building model combined with climate-specific and construction vintage–specific requirements for the building envelope and systems from ASHRAE Standard 90.1. The energy simulation results are presented for 4 construction vintages (2004, 2007, 2010, and 2013) and 15 ASHRAE climate zones. The site energy use intensity of the college building was compared with 2012 Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) and ENERGY STAR data to verify the simulation results. The site energy use intensity of the college building ranged from 60 to 202.4 kBtu/ft², and compared with the energy use intensities of Commercial Building Energy Consumption Survey (122.9 kBtu/ft²) and ENERGY STAR (84.3 kBtu/ft²) data, the prototype college building results are in a reasonable range.

• Research Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
• DOE Contract Number: AC05-00OR22725
• OSTI ID: 1878673
• Report Number(s): ORNL/TM-2022/2532
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

32 ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION
42 ENGINEERING