A Study on the Changes in the Heat Source Capacity and Air-Conditioning Load due to Retrofit; Focusing on a Large Office Building in Korea

In an office building, the internal heat and the skin load are both expected to change. Thus, this study is an initial step that searches for optimum replacement measures when a heat source system is replaced on an office building in Korea. The operation status of office buildings in Korea was investigated, and the heat source capacities at the retrofit and the design times were quantitatively studied to determine the optimum capacity during of a heat source during retrofit. For the four retrofit scenarios, the maximum cooling and heating loads were calculated to show that, when retrofit is performed, the maximum cooling and heating loads are decreased by 40%, while the heat source capacity is reduced by around 43%. This is believed to be because of the replacement of the window chassis, which are better sealed with higher heat insulation performance, due to the enhanced design criteria for exterior load designing, and an improved installation process. Concerning the air-conditioning load, the influence of the internal heat load turned out to be significant, indicating that such a factor should be considered when retrofit. Thus, if the heat source capacity at the initial design time is applied equivalently during the office building retrofit, it would lead to degradation in energy efficiency due to the excessive design. Thus, it is necessary to calculate a heat source capacity by reflecting the operational and current status of the load in an actual building at the time of a retrofit.