A methodology to develop an easy-to-use toolkit for the preliminary design of
high performance schools in hot and humid climates was presented. The toolkit proposed
in this research will allow decision makers without simulation knowledge easily to
evaluate accurately energy efficient measures for K-5 schools, which would contribute
to the accelerated dissemination of energy efficient design.
For the development of the toolkit, first, a survey was performed to identify high
performance measures available today being implemented in new K-5 school buildings.
Then an existing case-study school building in a hot and humid climate was selected and
analyzed to understand the energy use pattern in a school building and to be used in
developing a calibrated simulation. Based on the information from the previous step, an
as-built and calibrated simulation was then developed. To accomplish this, five
calibration steps were performed to match the simulation results with the measured
energy use. The five steps include: 1) Using an actual 2006 weather file with measured
solar radiation, 2) Modifying lighting & equipment schedule using ASHRAE's RP-1093 methods, 3) Using actual equipment performance curves (i.e., scroll chiller), 4) Using the Winkelmann's method for the underground floor heat transfer, and 5) Modifying the
HVAC and room setpoint temperature based on the measured field data. Next, the
calibrated simulation of the case-study K-5 school was compared to an ASHRAE
Standard 90.1-1999 code-compliant school.
In the next step, the energy savings potentials from the application of several
high performance measures to an equivalent ASHRAE Standard 90.1-1999 codecompliant
school. The high performance measures applied included the
recommendations from the ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guides (AEDG) for K-
12 and other high performance measures from the literature review as well as a
daylighting strategy and solar PV and thermal systems. The results show that the net
energy consumption of the final high performance school with the solar thermal and a
solar PV system would be 1,162.1 MMBtu, which corresponds to the 14.9 kBtu/sqft-yr
of EUI. The calculated final energy and cost savings over the code compliant school are
68.2% and 69.9%, respectively.
As a final step of the research, specifications for a simplified easy-to-use toolkit
were then developed, and a prototype screenshot of the toolkit was developed. The
toolkit is expected to be used by non-technical decision-maker to select and evaluate
high performance measures for a new school building in terms of energy and cost
savings in a quick and easy way.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:tamu.edu/oai:repository.tamu.edu:1969.1/ETD-TAMU-2009-12-7498 |
| Date | 2009 December 1900 |
| Creators | Im, Piljae |
| Contributors | Haberl, Jeff |
| Source Sets | Texas A and M University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Book, Thesis, Electronic Dissertation, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
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