Speech Title: Continuous Commissioning for Highly-Energy Efficient Future Buildings

Abstract:

The building sector is a major energy consumer worldwide with large contribution to operational energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, this sector has been prioritized in the schemes and plans of most of the countries as one of the sectors to address to attain the energy and environmental goals. Overall, having highly energy efficient buildings with low energy consumption will lead to a more stable and secure energy sector and less greenhouse gas emissions.

Relying on the fact that a building has met its energy targets at the design stage doesn’t guarantee that it is going to perform properly in the operational phase. One of the main challenges facing the building sector nowadays is the reported mismatch between the predicted and the actual performance throughout the building operational phase. This mismatch is referred to as the ‘building performance gap’. In this regard, the need for a systematic continuous commissioning framework to monitor, assess and evaluate the buildings performance is vital to bridge the performance gaps.

In this talk, ObepME, an innovative framework for online building energy performance monitoring and evaluation is presented, considering a list of performance tests addressing building subsystems. The framework relies on two major pillars, actual data collected from the building site, and calibrated energy model simulations to serve as a dynamic baseline for comparison and evaluation. The framework design, development, and implementation in a highly energy efficient building is presented, and findings from the framework implementation are highlighted considering the energy systems operation and indoor comfort perspectives in multiple real case study buildings.