PhD Thesis - Energy Systems Research Unit - University of Strathclyde

the building fabric is most effective in the smaller building. An important modellingaspect during the cooling season is therefore to reduce solar gains through theaddition of shading devices. Both building models results shown include the additionof external louvers shading approximately 70% of the buildings’ glazed area.In terms of the individual fabric improvement measures, simulations showed that thetwo most successful measures were the roof and wall insulation, with the formerbeing the most important individual improvement given the high solar inclinationduring summer which renders roofs the main entry point of solar gains into buildings.Finally, an important aspect is the fact that in both buildings, improving the buildingwas most effective for the ground floor apartment. Explicitly this suggests that giventheir location (sheltered from direct sunlight by the floors above) lower located floorstend to benefit from improvements in the thermal envelope of the floors locatedabove them. In this case the thicker (and more insulated) walls and roof serve asbarrier to the flow of solar-based heat gains downwards towards the ground floor.5.2 Effect of improving the electrical efficiency of appliances on residentialelectrical demand profilesIn Chapter 2 a method was presented whereby low-resolution electrical demanddatasets can be used to create high-resolution demand profiles reflecting the effectsof appliance energy-efficiency improvements in future years. Based on theaggregation of these individual appliance based profiles, a number of representativeseasonal daily electrical demand profiles were modelled to represent the current andhigh efficiency electrical demand profiles of individual and aggregated householdswithin the two buildings modelled.A number of these profiles, specifically those for the characteristic days in February,May and August, for both the 3 household building used in Scenario 1 and the 6household building used in Scenarios 2, 3, 4 and 5 were shown in Chapter 2. Table5.3 summarises the key features of the demand profiles shown in Chapter 2,specifically those used to model the current and high electrical efficiency demand168