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Title: Evaluation of Automated Model Calibration Techniques for Residential Building Energy Simulation

Technical Report ·
DOI:https://doi.org/10.2172/1220248· OSTI ID:1220248
 [1];  [1];  [2]
  1. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
  2. Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO (United States)

This simulation study adapts and applies the general framework described in BESTEST-EX (Judkoff et al 2010) for self-testing residential building energy model calibration methods. BEopt/DOE-2.2 is used to evaluate four mathematical calibration methods in the context of monthly, daily, and hourly synthetic utility data for a 1960's-era existing home in a cooling-dominated climate. The home's model inputs are assigned probability distributions representing uncertainty ranges, random selections are made from the uncertainty ranges to define "explicit" input values, and synthetic utility billing data are generated using the explicit input values. The four calibration methods evaluated in this study are: an ASHRAE 1051-RP-based approach (Reddy and Maor 2006), a simplified simulated annealing optimization approach, a regression metamodeling optimization approach, and a simple output ratio calibration approach. The calibration methods are evaluated for monthly, daily, and hourly cases; various retrofit measures are applied to the calibrated models and the methods are evaluated based on the accuracy of predicted savings, computational cost, repeatability, automation, and ease of implementation.

Research Organization:
National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Building Technologies Office (EE-5B) (Building America)
DOE Contract Number:
AC36-08GO28308
OSTI ID:
1220248
Report Number(s):
NREL/TP-5500-60127; 6492
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English