Calibrating Building Thermal Simulation Model Using Indoor Environmental Measurements

Dynamic Building Energy Simulation (DBES) modeling is a useful way to calculate the energy saving through retrofitting of the existing building stock. However, Professionals are concerned about the discrepancy between the calculated and actual energy savings which is known by the performance gap. Calibrating the DBES models is a crucial step before heading towards the optimization step. The existing standardized statistical indices depend on energy bills to perform the calibration. These indices are not easily applied in developing countries where a combination of fuels is sometimes used for heating. In this paper, the heating load in a single house in Hebron, Palestine was modeled as internal gain. Then the model was calibrated using internal environment measurements (internal temperature) that were taken through two monitoring phases for a single house in Hebron, Palestine. A validation method for a single house was presented using the internal temperature depending on the monitoring phases. The results show that the model was calibrated and can be used for optimization.