Analysis of the Impact of the Use Profile of HVAC Systems Established by the Spanish Standard to Assess Residential Building Energy Performance

State regulations play an important role to guarantee an appropriate building energy performance. As for the Spanish regulation, the limitation of energy consumption should be analyzed with simulation tools by using operational profiles. The profile of operational conditions of HVAC systems in residential buildings limits the use of heating and cooling systems. This paper studied the limitations of the residential profile in energy assessment processes through simulation tools. A case study was analyzed with three operational approaches and was placed in 8131 Spanish cities. The results showed that the use limitations of cooling systems lead to ignorance of an important percentage contribution in the cooling energy demand in some months of the year. The use of an operational profile with an extended calendar for cooling systems for the entire year would imply a more appropriate knowledge of the building energy performance in order to know the fulfilment of the state regulation and its correct energy classification.