Predicting the Effects of Changes in Thermal Envelope Characteristics on Energy Consumption: Application and Verification of a Simple Model for Australian and Canadian Climates

A simple energy model was used for determining thermal envelope characteristics and building envelope trade-off procedures for the new Canadian and Australian energy efficiency codes for new buildings. The model relates heating and cooling system loads to envelope thermal characteristics. It was developed from thousands of DOE2.1E simulation runs. Two separate databases, one containing 25 Canadian locations and the other containing 9 Australian locations were created. The heating and cooling models were developed from these databases. The model is shown to give consistent results although there are significant differences in climate, construction of the building envelope, building operational schedules and HVAC system configurations. This paper briefly describes the DOE2.1E models used for the study in each country, highlighting similarities and differences. The consistency of results predicted by the model is discussed for typical climatic locations in both countries. The methods for predicting heating and cooling system loads are shown to produce good results over a wide range of climates and for different system configurations. The paper also discusses the development of climate correlations to extend the range of the models to include locations not in the original databases.