Performance Assessment of Building by Virtual Energy Audit

Abstract

Every region, country and city is witnessing unprecedented growth in infrastructure that includes predominantly building structures. Global Construction 2030 – forecasts the volume of construction. Global Construction Perspectives and Oxford Economics - shows average global construction growth of 3.9% pa to 2030, outpacing that of global GDP by over one percentage point, driven by developed countries recovering from economic instability and emerging countries continuing to industrialize output will grow by 85% to $15.5 trillion worldwide by 2030. This astounding growth in building structures reflects obviously in energy consumption and in turn carbon footprint. There is a need to assess energy efficiency status of the buildings that would enable taking up appropriate energy conservation measures throughout the lifecycle of a building. In this regard, the traditional on-site physical audit suffers with limitations in terms of deployment, installation, human resource and scalability in overall execution, making it techno-economically less attractive and time consuming.The present paper provides practical application and validation of an innovative tool that enables performance assessment of buildings to uncover energy efficiency improvements in buildings and facilities remotely. This tool uses multi-physics principles wherein entire building is analyzed based on fundamental energy and work transfer principles using laws of thermodynamics, heat transfer and mass transfer. This innovative tool enables cost efficient energy savings through a virtual energy audit conducted remotely.In the present work, the case study from India, in particular academic building, industrial building and commercial building are considered as a candidate for virtual energy audit. The results depict that virtual energy audit is holistic and accurate evaluation and analysis of candidate’s current energy use. The results enable take informed and educated decisions for prioritizing energy conservation measures to improve energy efficiency.