Practice Exercise: Building Envelope Systems

Your building envelope recommendations for this practice exercise should feature:

• Your recommended settings for the Insight Factor tiles
• A screenshot from Insight showing the Predicted Mean EUI and the range of values resulting from your assumptions

1. The Original Model

The figure above shows the original BIM model provided. After running the model and generate the result in insight, we got the following result:

The result of starting predicted EUI is 74.4 kBtu/ft2/yr, which is not the same as given(81.3 kBtu/ft2/yr).

The resulted EUI is 51.4 kBtu/ft2/yr.

2. Use Insight to Explore the Impact of Building Envelope-Related Design Decisions
1. Use the Insight Factor tiles to find a combination that will deliver the target Predicted Mean EUI of 54 kBtu/ft2/yr or lower. This is already achieved by setting our base factors above.
2. Consider these Factors:
1. Thermal Properties of Wall Surface (Wall Construction) for all orientations
2. Glazing % (Window-to-Wall Ratio) for each orientation (North, South, East, West)
3. Thermal Properties of Glazing Surfaces for each orientation
4. Window Shading amount for each orientation

Since the target predicted EUI is already chieved, we make some reasonable changes to further optimize it.

Some changes we make:

WWR - Western Walls : 0% (The major impact)

WWR - Southern Walls : 30%

WWR - Eastern Walls : 30%

Wall Constructions: Some limitations are set

The resulted expected EUI is 39.8 kBtu/ft2/yr.

3. Use Insight to Explore the Potential Impact of Power and Lighting Measures (versus Building Envelope Measures)
1. Use the Insight Factor tiles to explore the impact of:
1. Plug Load Efficiency (the equipment and appliances that draw power): 0.6 W/sf
2. Lighting Efficiency (based on the efficiency of the lighting fixtures): 0.3 W/sf
3. Daylighting & Occupancy Controls: Occupancy Controls
2. How low can you drive the Predicted Mean EUI by adding these power and lighting measures to your recommended building envelope choices?.

The resulted EUI is further reduced to 24.0 kBtu/ft2/yr.





3. Use Insight to Explore the Benefits of Adding Photovoltaic Panels to Your Design
1. Use the Insight Factor tiles to explore the impact of Photovoltaic Panels, varying the:
1. Surface Coverage : 90%
2. Panel Efficiency: 20.4%
3. Payback Limit (how many years you will allow for the panels to pay for themselves: 20-30 yr
2. How low can you drive the Predicted Mean EUI by adding these Photovoltaic panel measures to your overall design strategy?

The resulted EUI is -18.0 kBtu/ft2/yr, which is much lower than the ARCH 2030(9.2 kBtu/ft2/yr).