SBEM in Hong Kong Air-conditioned Buildings

This study addresses a concept of the Sustainable Building Environmental Model (SBEM) developed to optimize energy consumption in air conditioning and ventilation (ACV) systems without any deterioration of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). The SBEM incorporates with two main components: an adaptive comfort temperature control module (ACT) and a carbon dioxide concentration demand control ventilation (DCV). These two modules are essential to maintain satisfaction of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) with optimum energy consumption, they provide a rational basis of effective control in air-conditioning system of buildings.

Mockup simulation package was developed to evaluate the dynamic performance of the energy and IEQ with the integration of the SBEM in an air-conditioned office. This simulation package was able to predict the annual cooling energy consumption in buildings, with satisfactory IEQ and optimal clothing value choices in office before any strategies being implementing in real systems. Tentative results suggested raising indoor temperature set-point may not be the most effective energy saving strategy in view of IEQ acceptance level, where selection of DCV system and adequate employee’s clothing style were also the important issues for cooling energy conservation consideration.

Reference

Mui K.W. and Chan W.T., ‘Adaptive Comfort Temperature Model of Air-conditioned Building in Hong Kong’, Building and Environment, Volume 38, Number 6, pp. 837-852, 2003.

Wong L.T. and Mui K.W., ‘An energy performance assessment for indoor environment quality (IEQ) acceptance in air-conditioned offices’, Energy Conversion and Management, Volume 50, pp.1362-1367, 2009.

Acknowledgments

The work described in this paper was substantially/partially supported by Internal Competitive Research Grant (CRG: G-YL19), The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China, and The Environment and Conservation Fund (ECF: K-ZJJV), The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China.