ype 1: Environmental uncertainties

The type 1 from this grouping, have been divided here into two main groups: one concerning the
uncertainty due to climate change; and the other concerning uncertainties due to the use of synthetic
weather data files. Concerning the uncertainties due to climate change: buildings have long life spans,
for example, in England and Wales, around 40% of the office blocks existing in 2004 were built before
1940 (30% if considered by floor area).[5] and, 38.9% of English dwellings in 2007 were built before
1944.[6] This long life span makes buildings likely to operate with climates that might change due to
global warming. De Wilde and Coley showed how important is to design buildings that take into
consideration climate change and that are able to perform well in future weathers.[7] Concerning the
uncertainties due to the use of synthetic weather data files: Wang et al. showed the impact that
uncertainties in weather data (among others) may cause in energy demand calculations.[8] The
deviation in calculated energy use due to variability in the weather data were found to be different in
different locations from a range of (-0.5% – 3%) in San Francisco to a range of (-4% to 6%) in
Washington D.C. The ranges were calculated using TMY as the reference. These deviations on the
demand were smaller than the ones due to operational parameters. For those, the ranges were (-29% –
79%) for San Francisco and (-28% – 57%) for Washington D.C. The operation parameters were those
linked with occupants’ behaviour. The conclusion of this paper is that occupants will have a larger
impact in energy calculations than the variability between synthetically generated weather data files.
The spatial resolution of weather data files was the concern covered by Eames et al.[9] Eames showed
how a low spatial resolution of weather data files can be the cause of disparities of up to 40% in the
heating demand.

Type 2: Workmanship
In the work of Pettersen, uncertainties of group 2 (workmanship and quality of elements) and group 3
(behaviour) of the previous grouping were considered (Pettersen, 1994). This work shows how
important occupants’ behaviour is on the calculation of the energy demand of a building. Pettersen
showed that the total energy use follows a normal distribution with a standard deviation of around 7.6%
when the uncertainties due to occupants are considered, and of around 4.0% when considering those
generated by the properties of the building elements. A large study was carried out by Leeds
Metropolitan at Stamford Brook. This project saw 700 dwellings built to high efficiency standards.[10]
The results of this project show a significant gap between the energy used expected before construction
and the actual energy use once the house is occupied. The workmanship is analysed in this work. The
authors emphasise the importance of thermal bridges that were not considered for the calculations, and
how those originated by the internal partitions that separate dwellings have the largest impact on the
final energy use. The dwellings that were monitored in use in this study show a large difference
between the real energy use and that estimated using SAP, with one of them giving +176% of the
expected value when in use.
Hopfe has published several papers concerning uncertainties in building design that cover
workmanship. A more recent publication at the time of writing [11] looks into uncertainties of group 2
and 3. In this work the uncertainties are defined as normal distributions. The random parameters are
sampled to generate 200 tests that are sent to the simulator (VA114), the results from which will be
analysed to check the uncertainties with the largest impact on the energy calculations. This work
showed that the uncertainty in the value used for infiltration is the factor that is likely to have the
largest influence on cooling and heating demands. Another study performed by de Wilde and Wei
Tian,[12] compared the impact of most of the uncertainties affecting building energy calculations
taking into account climate change. De Wilde and Tian used a two dimensional Monte Carlo Analysis
to generate a database obtained with 7280 runs of a building simulator. A sensitivity analysis was
applied to this database to obtain the most significant factors on the variability of the energy demand
calculations. Standardised Regression Coefficients and Standardised Rank Regression Coefficients
were used to compare the impacts of the uncertainties.
De Wilde and Tian agreed with Hopfe on the impact of uncertainties in the infiltration over energy
calculations, but also introduced other factors, including uncertainties in: weather, U-Value of
windows, and other variables related with occupants’ behaviour (equipment and lighting). Their paper
compares many of the uncertainties with a good sized database providing a realistic comparison for the
scope of the sampling of the uncertainties. The work of Schnieders and Hermelink [13] showed a
substantial variability in the energy demands of low-energy buildings designed under the same
specification (Passivhaus).

Type 3: Occupants
The work of Schnieders and Hermelink [14] showed a substantial variability in the energy demands of
low-energy buildings designed under the same specification (Passivhaus). Although the passivhaus
standard has a very controlled, high quality workmanship, large differences have been seen in energy
demand in different houses.
Blight and Coley [15] showed that that variability can be occasioned due to variance in occupant
behaviour (the use of windows and doors was included in this work). The work of Blight and Coley
proves two things: (1) Occupants have a substantial influence on energy use; and (2) The model they
used to generate occupants’ behaviour is accurate for the creation of behavioural patterns of inhabitants.
The method used in the previous paper [16] to generate accurate profiles of occupants’ behaviour was
the one developed by Richardson et al.[17] The method was developed using the Time-Use Survey
(TUS) of the United Kingdom as a reference of real behaviour of occupants, this database was
elaborated after recording the activity of more than 6000 occupants in 24-hours diaries with a 10
minutes resolution . Richardson’s paper shows how the tool is able to generate behavioural patterns that
correlate with the real data obtained from the TUS. The availability of this tool allows scientist’s to
model the uncertainty of occupants’ behaviour as a set of behavioural patterns that have been proven to
correlate with real occupants’ behaviour. There have been works published to take into account
occupancy in optimisation using the so called robust optimisation [18]