An energy signal tool for decision support in building energy systems

Gregor P. Henze, Gregory S. Pavlak, Anthony R. Florita, Robert H. Dodier and Adam I. Hirsch

Applied Energy, 2015, vol. 138, issue C, 70 pages

Abstract: A prototype energy signal tool is demonstrated for operational whole-building and system-level energy use evaluation. The purpose of the tool is to give a summary of building energy use which allows a building operator to quickly distinguish normal and abnormal energy use. Toward that end, energy use status is displayed as a traffic light, which is a visual metaphor for energy use which is substantially different from expected (red and yellow lights) or more or less the same as expected (green light). Which light to display for a given energy end-use is determined by comparing expected energy use to actual energy use. As expected energy use is necessarily uncertain, we cannot choose the appropriate light with certainty. Instead the energy signal tool chooses the light by minimizing the expected cost of displaying the wrong light. The expected energy use is represented by a probability distribution. Energy use is modeled by a low-order lumped parameter model. Uncertainty in energy use is quantified by a Monte Carlo exploration of the influence of model parameters on energy use. Distributions over model parameters are updated over time via Bayes’ theorem. The simulation study is devised to assess whole building energy signal accuracy in the presence of uncertainty and faults at the submetered level, which may lead to tradeoffs at the whole building level not detectable without submetering.

Keywords: Decision support; Operational building energy modeling; Bayesian updating (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261914010708
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:138:y:2015:i:c:p:51-70

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2014.10.029

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().