PhD Thesis - Energy Systems Research Unit - University of Strathclyde

various aspects which make up the heat and power demands of the building, andexplain how the various factors being investigated were factored in the modellingprocess.In the case of the electrical demand, a method has been developed whereby lowresolutionelectrical demand datasets can be used to create high-resolution demanddata reflecting the effects of appliance energy-efficiency improvements. The methodmakes use of a three stage transformation process which first creates seasonalvariations of individual monthly data, then converts the low-resolution hourly datainto high-resolution minute data and finally projects the data into a high efficiencyscenario reflecting improved appliance energy-efficiency. Such a method thereforepermits the creation of two high resolution electrical efficiency scenarios, a currentefficiency and a high efficiency.In the case of the thermal demand, it was discussed how this can be broadly dividedinto two parts, the domestic hot water demand and the heating and cooling energydemand arising from space conditioning. The modelling of the domestic hot waterdemand makes use of established research to create minute resolution hot waterdemand profiles. The former demand is more complex, as it is the result of a numberof factors, including climate, building characteristics, solar gains and internal heatgains and requires the use of a building simulation tool to calculate. This chaptertherefore focused on two critical aspects that affect the heat load: the modelling ofthe building characteristics and the internal heat gains. The chapter elaborates onhow the building fabric and the geometry were modified to include for operatingconditions which could possibly impact micro-trigeneration system performance.With regards to the internal heat gains, this chapter presents a process leading to themodelling of high resolution internal heat gains due to occupants and applianceswhich was eventually used in the simulations.82