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Online Building Energy Modelling for Architects and Engineers

The latest Building Regulations require carbon emissions from buildings to be reduced by about 25% compared with an equivalent building designed to the 2002 Building Regulations. ‘Greenness’ cannot easily be added to a building at a late stage in the design process. The reduction of carbon emissions must be considered from the very beginning, and building-performance simulation software is an important tool.

Modern Building Services Journal

If you are involved in the building design and construction industry and are concerned about meeting significant energy and resource reduction goals, you know how difficult it is to determine which actions to take to meet these goals. Green Building Studio, Inc. - delivered online in the UK by partners Greenspace Research - provides the only web-based energy engineering analysis solution that integrates with 3D-CAD/BIM applications. Green Building Studio enables your design team to have immediate whole building energy analysis results on all building schemes while sharing files with today’s engineering tools. This solution reduces two weeks of work to a day.

In addition to our award winning web service, the Green Building Studio/Greenspace Research Team provides world-class engineering services to any size organization, helping to navigate through these critical building energy and resource design decisions. If you are a building product manufacturer, Green Building Studio is the only solution that allows your product to be applied and analyzed for specific building designs. The Green Building Studio Team can also provide strategic market analysis to determine the building types and locations where your products are most suitable.

In this training exercise you will use Green Building Studio to perform an energy analysis on the London Building, a standard test building developed for SBEM, the Simplified Building Energy Model software supporting the UK National Calculation Methodology. The London Building is described in detail in the SBEM Training Manual, and is provided with the SBEM software as a training project. The software and manual can be downloaded from the National Calculation Methodology web site.


Contents

London Building - Introduction

The London Building, a hypothetical building used as the core training project within SBEM.

In this training exercise you will:

  • learn about the London Building, a standard energy analysis training model
  • learn to use Building Information Modelling tools with Green Building Studio
  • export building models as gbXML files
  • transmit the files to Green Building Studio for analysis
  • review energy analysis results
  • explore Green Building Studio design alternatives


Essential URLs to complete this exercise: 

The building is located in London. It is rectangular with dimensions of 50 m x 30 m. It provides space for offices, a
supermarket, and a coffee shop. It has two floors. The supermarket and the coffee shop are located on the ground floor (with 
an outdoor passage between them), and the offices are located on the first floor. The building is a single block, and there are 
no other buildings in the surrounding area. Therefore, there is no need to consider any other shading except for self-shading.

Energy Analysis using Green Building Studio

STEP 1 Register with Green Building Studio

Register yourself with Green Building Studio using the following URL:

Note that you will have to validate your login details once you receive your validation email. To activate your membership, simply click on the button contained in the email to return to the site and login. You will see a message on the Login Page saying:

  • Thank you yourname. Your email address has been validated.


STEP 2 Login and create a new project in Green Building Studio

Creating a new project in Green Building Studio.

Enter the project name London Building.

The building type, schedule, country and postcode have very substantial influence on the energy analysis.

Select building type Office.

Select building type Office.

Select schedule 12/5 Facility.

Select schedule 12/5 Facility.

Select country United Kingdom.

Select postcode SW19 5AE.

Once the postcode has been selected, Green Building Studio is in a position to retrieve weather and utility costs for the project.

Press the button marked Retrieve local weather and utility costs

Retrieve local weather and utility costs.

Accept the terms of the licence agreement (I am authorised to accept the terms of the EULA and share project data with the GBS web service). The project list will now include the London Building. For this training exercise 128 free runs have been setup for the project in order to explore various design parameters.

Project list now includes the London Building.


STEP 3 Model the building in Building Information Modelling tool eg Autodesk Revit

  • The London Building
The London Building, a hypothetical building used as the core training project within SBEM.

Building Information Modelling (BIM) is a new tool used by the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry to describe "3D, object-oriented, AEC-specific CAD". Some well known BIM tools which support gbXML are:

The London Building is described in detail in the SBEM Training Manual, and is provided with the software as a training project. The software and manual can be downloaded from the National Calculation Methodology web site.

For the purposes of the training exercise the London Building is modelled here as an open plan office. Comparisons with SBEM results can be carried out by ensuring that each zone is correspondingly set to open plan office.

One of the challenges of working with SBEM is that the geometry has to be specified in a non-visual manner, using textboxes and drop down selections. The combination of visual 3D Building Information Modelling (BIM) with Green Building Studio makes this process much easier and is more in tune with how architects work. In our example we modelled the London Building in Autodesk Revit. 



The building is located in London. It is rectangular with dimensions of 50 m x 30 m. It provides space for offices, a
supermarket, and a coffee shop. It has two floors. The supermarket and the coffee shop are located on the ground floor (with 
an outdoor passage between them), and the offices are located on the first floor. The building is a single block, and there are 
no other buildings in the surrounding area. Therefore, there is no need to consider any other shading except for self-shading.
The first floor of the London Building.
South Elevation of the London Building.

If you do not have Autodesk Revit proceed to step 4. If you are a Revit user, you can download our model of the London building.











STEP 4 Export the building from Revit as gbXML file

Export building from revit as gbXML file.

Once the 3D model has been developed, it can be exported from Revit in the Green Building XML gbXML format. The Green Building XML schema, referred to as “gbXML”, was developed to facilitate the transfer of building information stored in CAD building information models, enabling integrated interoperability between building design models and a wide variety of engineering analysis tools and models.

If you do not have access to Revit or ArchiCAD you can use our prebuilt gbXML files for this Green Building Studio training session. Right-click on the link below, choose 'Save Target As' and save the gbXML file to a directory on your computer.


















Save the gbxml file to disk.

STEP 5 Upload gbXML file to Green Building Studios

Next, you will need to add a building to your project list. Select 'add new building (beta)' which will open up a new window for login details to be entered. Enter in the username and password created when you registered with Green Building Studio.













Select the project (London Building)which should open up a new window untitled 'Upload gbXML file'. Enter a title into project title box and select browse. Find the gbXML file which should have been saved earlier onto the computer and open it.











A new window will open, follow instructions and press button marked Close Window & Email Me When Run Is Finished. The gbXML model will be submitted to the Green Building Studio web service. A browser window will open and present the status of the energy simulation.
















STEP 6 Review baseline results

Initial baseline results.



















Use the Results page to help you answer the following questions. Click on pie chart to show break down of results.

Questions

GENERAL INFORMATION

  • What is the building type for the project?
  • What is the floor area of the building?

LOCATION

  • Where is the building located?
  • What is the gas fuel cost in pence per kWh?

ESTIMATED ENERGY & COST SUMMARY

  • What are the projected annual CO2 emissions for this building?
  • What is the annual cost of electrical energy?
  • What is the annual total gas fuel consumption?
  • What is the annual peak electricity demand?
  • What is the approximate total energy use for the building in kWh/sqM/annum

ENERGY END-USE CHARTS

  • What is the annual percentage electricity use for lighting?
  • What is the annual electricity use for HVAC[Heating and Ventilating] as a percentage?
  • What is the percentage gas use for DHW[Domestic Hot Water]?

BUILDING SUMMARY

  • How many occupants does the programme estimate for the building?
  • What is the average equipment power density?
  • What is the total fan flow for the building?

CONSTRUCTIONS

  • What are the units for a U value?
  • What is the U value of the exterior wall?
  • What is the U value of the concrete floor slab?
  • What is the total glazing area of the building?


When you have answered all the questions post your answers to the discussion forum.


STEP 7 Design Alternatives - Lighting

Now try experimenting with various design parameters. Firstly, with Lighting. Click on the Design Alternatives link. When you have submitted your alternatives, return to Runs and click on + next to londonbuilding gbXML. This will open up new run results. To update results refresh using F5.

Design Alternatives.


























Lighting Design Alternative.

























Create a Design Alternative with the following values:

Lighting

  • Reduce Lighting Power Density [LPD] by 40%
  • Apply Occupancy/Daylight Sensors and Controls

Name the Alternative 'Lighting' and press the Add button followed by the Submit button.

Questions

  • What is the approx reduction in annual electricity energy costs?
  • Why does the gas fuel consumption increase?
  • What is the approx reduction in annual peak electricity demand?
  • What is the approx reduction in average lighting power density in W/sqM?


When you have answered all the questions post your answers to the discussion forum.

STEP 8 Design Alternatives - Constructions

In this step you will change all four walls to super high insulation.

Create a Design Alternative with the following values:

Northern Walls/Southern Walls/Western Walls/Eastern Walls

  • Massive Wall with Super High Insulation

Name the Alternative '4-Walls-Super-High' and press the Add button followed by the Submit button.

Questions

  • Is there a reduction in CO2 emissions?
  • Why is there a reduction in annual gas fuel use?
  • What was the reduction in the exterior wall U value?


When you have answered all the questions post your answers to the discussion forum.

STEP 9 Design Alternatives - HVAC

In this step you will change the HVAC to the Electric Heat Pump option.

Create a Design Alternative with the following values:

HVAC

  • Electric Heat Pump

Name the Alternative 'Efficient HVAC' and press the Add button followed by the Submit button.

Questions

  • What effect does this have on CO2 emissions?
  • Why does the annual electricity cost increase?
  • Does the total annual energy for both electricity and gas reduce for this scheme?
  • What is the reason for this?


When you have answered all the questions post your answers to the discussion forum.

For further information contact: 

Victoria Silver
Marketing and Training Support
Greenspace Research
Email: victoria.silver at lews.uhi.ac.uk 
Phone: +44-1851-770324
Retrieved from "http://wiki.greenspaceresearch.uhi.ac.uk/index.php/Online_Training"
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