A Lumped Parameter Model for Dynamic Simulation of Energy Control Policies Applied to Small Public Buildings

As public buildings are responsible for considerable amounts of fuel consumption, public administrations are encouraged to adopt interventions for energy requalification of their real estates. In particular, low-cost energy requalification with high return on investments is a good opportunity when resource shortage hampers the adoption of expensive refurbishment. However, in order to properly plan such a process, a detailed energy audit must be carried out. In addition, a reliable model of the audited building is needed to breakdown the whole energy consumption and to simulate prospective energy savings from candidate requalification strategies. To that purpose, this paper will describe a new-generation Dymola based simulation approach, that is reliable enough for assessing the dynamic behaviour of public buildings, even when non-standard systems and heat transfer phenomena are involved. This model provides users with two main advantages: on one hand it facilitates the simulation of interacting physical phenomena (e.g. fluid-dynamics, thermal exchange etc...), on the other hand it allows to simulate even advanced control of existing HVAC systems. This last feature is not typical of standard energy simulation software programs. In addition, it is needed when we deal with low-cost energy requalification, because it is usually aimed at the enhancement of existing regulation devices, so that their behaviour must be simulated in order to find out the best customized control policy. Finally, the paper will assess energy savings which can be obtained through the improvement of the HVAC system's control policy for a case study relative to a small public building, that is used as a community clinic.