Improved fast calculating Climate Surface calculation method combined with multi-parameter building optimization for early design stages

This study presents a fast-calculating building optimization method for the early design stages in building renovation. It is used in combination of Climate Surface calculation method for predicting heating and cooling energy demand. The advantage of the presented calculation method is its short calculation time. The use of the Climate Surface method enables the application of holistic building optimization methods in the early design stages, where optimization methods based on dynamic simulation tools are too time consuming. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the advantages of the Climate Surface method in applications where many building predictions are needed as in holistic optimizations and in statistical evaluations like Monte Carlo simulations. In this study, an improvement of the Climate Surface is demonstrated and the accuracy and calculation time of the Climate Surface method is compared to the dynamic simulation software EnergyPlus. Statistical error indicator methods are used to verify the accuracy of the Climate Surface Method. The Equi-Marginal building optimization method is applied in combination with the Climate Surface to illustrate its reliable and fast calculation results. Evaluation criterion for the optimization process is the Life Cycle Cost. The results show that the presented optimization achieves reliable calculation results in a reasonable time period for early design stages. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.