A case study of sensitivity analysis

of the domestic hot water system in

large hotels

Zhihong Pang Zheng O’Neill, PhD, PE

Student Member ASHRAE Member ASHRAE

ABSTRACT

Water heating is a major contributor to building energy consumption and carbon emissions in the United States, especially for residential buildings and
Hotel/Motel sector in commercial buildings. Various factors in the design and operation stages are found to have significant influences on the hot water
usage and associated energy usage. There has been an increased number of studies on optimizing the design and sizing of the water heating system in
buildings in recent years. However, most of these studies focused on the collection and analysis of the actual data of hot water usage with rare
acknowledgments of uncertainties from a variety of influential parameters such as occupant behaviors, operational schedules, etc. The current
understanding of the sensitivity of the hot water usage related to those influential factors is still limited. This paper used a whole building simulation
software (i.e., EnergyPlus) to investigate the behavior of the domestic hot water (DHW) usage in hotels. Sensitivity analysis (SA) was utilized to
interpret the simulation results. A commercial prototype building model developed by the U.S. Department of Energy was used for the case study. The
selected building is a six-story large hotel with five locations (i.e., Miami in FL, San Francisco in CA, Houston in TX, Chicago in IL, and Burlington
in VT). Three thousand EnergyPlus Monte Carlo simulations were conducted for each location. Annual and peak water and energy consumptions
associated with the hot water usage were selected for the study of impacts of key parameters on the hot water usage. These key parameters included both
time-varying ones (i.e., DHW draw schedules) and time-independent ones (e.g., heater thermal efficiency, temperature setpoints, and tank volume). Two
sensitivity indicators (i.e., Sobol and PEAR index) were computed for the sensitivity analysis of the simulation results to reveal the correlations between
the hot water energy use and these input parameters. This study facilitates the design and optimization of the domestic hot water system, and supports the
intelligent operation of the daily hot water system in an energy-efficient and effective way.

INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Residential buildings represent a substantial proportion of energy expenditures and greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions in the United States (EIA 2011; Mills 2011). Typical major areas of building energy consumption include
building heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system (36%), lighting sector (11%), and major appliances
(18%) such as dryers, freezers, etc. (EIA 2011). Existing researches mainly focused on the optimization of building
HVAC system design and operation since it comprises the largest part of the energy usage in buildings. However, some
recent studies suggested that water heating, which was always underestimated in the previous researches, also raises
enormous demand for energy and water (Hiller and Johnson 2017a,b).
In the United States, domestic hot water (DHW) accounts for approximately 15 to 25 percent of the total energy
consumed at home (BTS 2001). This makes it the third largest energy consumer following the space heating/cooling
and lighting in the residential buildings. In Canada, a survey released by the Office of Energy Efficiency (OEE)
Zhihong Pang is a graduate student and Zheng O’Neill is an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alabama,
Tuscaloosa, AL.
suggested that water heating accounted for 8 and 19 percent of the total energy consumptions of the commercial and
residential sectors respectively in 2013 (OEE 2016). In Hong Kong, the total annual water consumption of a surveyed
five-star hotel with a total area of 37,000 m2 (400,000 ft2) was approximately 160 million liters (42.27 million gallons),
and the annual water and energy bill for DHW was over 1 million HK dollars in 2002 (Deng and Burnett 2002).
An appropriate design of the DHW system is necessary for achieving energy and water efficiency in buildings.
There is a diverse spectrum of varying parameters influencing the water and energy usage associated with the DHW
system, such as the water tank volume, flow rate, timing, etc. (Lowenstein and Hiller 1998). Besides, some factors in the
design and operation phases also have significant impacts, including the layout of the piping system, the selection of the
water heater, and the operation management (Hiller and Johnson 2017b). These parameters are always associated with
significant uncertainties (Hiller and Johnson 2015). For example, the average water heating energy consumption was 21
GJ/year/household (19.7 MM BTU/year/household) for the electricity-powered systems, while for the systems using
natural gas and propane, the energy consumption increased to 32 and 31 GJ/year/household (29.4 and 28.5 MM
BTU/year/household) respectively (Aydinalp 2002). Besides, building occupants, which are always associated with huge
uncertainties (Fairey and Parker 2004), also play a significant role in the DHW usage, especially in hotel/motel sector
(Hendron and Burch 2007; Kumar et al. 1987).
In practice, it is usually not an easy task to design, model, and simulate the DHW system primarily due to its
intrinsic complexity and enormous uncertainties. For instance, in the prototype building model of a large hotel
developed by U.S. DOE [20], the number of DHW-associated parameters is over 200, ranging from the equipment
parameters (i.e., tank volume, water heater efficiency, maximum capacity, etc.) to the occupant related parameters (i.e.,
the maximum flow rate, temperature limit, schedules, etc.) (DOE 2015). Selecting the right input values for these
aforementioned parameters is usually tricky and confusing for designers and building molders, especially for those who
don’t have much experience in this area.
Sensitivity analysis (SA) is a powerful tool in such a situation when the system is involved with inherent
uncertainties. SA is mainly used to identify the main contributors to the variation or imprecision in the outputs (Iman
and Helton 1988; Saltelli et al. 2008). It has several advantages (Hopfe and Hensen 2011): (1) The model can be
simplified by conducting a screening analysis. (2) The robustness of the model can be evaluated. (3) It makes aware of
the sensitivities which could potentially lead to unexpected errors. (4) It can be used to support the decision making by
showing the effect of changing parameters on the model’s outcome. This process is also known as a “what-if” analysis.
For these advantages, SA was widely used in the building simulation in the past decade, as has been summarized in
Table 1.
Table 1. The simulation engine, SA method, and conclusions of the reviewed literature
Literature SA method Simulation engine Conclusions
(Lam and Hui 1996) IC DOE2 SA can effectively identify the important parameters
in building design.
(O'Neill and Niu 2017) PEAR, Sobol index EnergyPlus Thermostat setpoints have huge impacts on
residential building energy usage.
(Tian and De Wilde 2011) SRC, ACOSSO EnergyPlus Usage of multiple weather files is important.
(Sun et al. 2014) ANOVA EnergyPlus Building cooling and heating loads are most sensitive
to the occupancy density, the effective leakage
area, and the weather.
(Delgarm et al. 2018) OFAT, Sobol index EnergyPlus Some guidance on the building thermal design was
given.
(Sanchez et al. 2014) Morris method ESP-r SA should be implemented for a particular situation.
(Hopfe et al. 2007) PCC VA114 The WOH was most sensitive to the densities of the
concreate slab floor and wall
(Mao et al. 2017) SRC UWG Key factors which impact on the outdoor air
temperature and the daily urban electricity use
were identified.
(Qiu et al. 2018) IC NEM A quick model calibration method was proposed.
 This paper aims to use SA methods to identify the key influencing factors of the DHW system to facilitate the
DHW system design and operations in large hotels. Firstly, a literature review on the status quo of the DHW usage, the
challenges associated with the DHW system simulation, and the SA applications in the building simulations is
conducted. Then the SA methodology used in this study is briefly elaborated. A detailed description of how the input
parameters are perturbed and how the sensitivity indexes are defined and calculated is presented. Then a Monte Carlo
simulation-based case study is performed with the large hotel prototype building EnergyPlus model. The simulation is
conducted in five locations (Miami FL, San Francisco CA, Houston TX, Chicago IL, and Burlington VT) to investigate
the influence of climate conditions on the hot water and energy usage in large hotels. 3,000 EnergyPlus samples are
simulated for each location. Two SA methods (i.e., PEAR index and Sobol index) are computed. Finally, the results of
the SA are presented to give some guidance on the design and operation of the DHW system of the large hotel.

METHODOLOGY

Overview

As shown in Figure 1, there are three main steps for the methodology proposed in this study. Firstly, the input
parameters to be studied and their corresponding uncertainties should be determined. In this paper, two types of input
parameters, which are time-independent inputs (e.g., inlet water temperature, heater thermal efficiency, water tank
volume, etc.) and time-varying inputs (i.e., the daily DHW draw events), were included. The nominal values for each
parameter were assigned using the default values from the DOE prototype building model. These parameters were
perturbed with different sampling methods based on their types. Then, a Monte Carlo-based sampling method was
implemented to combine the samples of different input parameters and generate the EnergyPlus input IDF files. Each
individual EnergyPlus IDF file sample was then passed to and executed by EnergyPlus. It runs on a console basis which
reads the input and writes the output to text files. This feature makes it suitable for sensitivity analysis. With the
simulation results from thousands of samples, the SA was conducted with the collected input and output data. In this
research, PEAR and Sobol indexes were computed.

Figure 1 The methodology of the sensitivity analysis

Sampling

Time-independent parameters. The sampling of the time-independent variables is usually determined by the
uncertainty which the variable is associated with. The uncertainty is generally classified as two categories: aleatory and
epistemic (Der Kiureghian and Ditlevsen 2009; Helton and Burmaster 1996). The aleatory uncertainty usually refers to
the inherent uncertainty due to the probabilistic variability. Such an uncertainty mainly comes from the inherent
randomness in the system behavior, and thus it is irreducible since there will always be variability in the underlying
variables. The parameters which are associated with aleatory uncertainty are often assumed to conform to a normal
distribution (Mao et al. 2017).The epistemic uncertainty is associated with the limited knowledge we may have for the
system to be studied. This type of uncertainty is reducible by taking more measurements, or conducting more tests. The
parameters associated with this type of uncertainty are often approximated to have a uniform distribution (Mao et al.
2017).
Time-varying parameters. The Karhunen-Loève (KL) expansion is used for the sampling of time-varying
parameers. The KL expansion decomposes a stochastic process into a series of orthogonal functions with the random
coefficients. The definition of the KL expansion is shown in Equation (1) (O'Neill and Niu 2017), where 𝜇𝜒 (𝑡) denotes
the mean value; 𝜆𝑖 denotes the weighting factor; 𝜓𝑖 denotes the time various basis function; and 𝑦𝑖 represents the
stochastic dependence. When the KL expansion is done, the stochastic process χ is expressed as a weighted sum of a
series of temporal basis functions of 𝜓𝑖 , and the stochastic dependence factors 𝑦𝑖 are expressed as the Gaussian
variables which are independent of time and with a mean value of zero. After this step, a time-varying uncertainty can
be represented as the sum of time-dependent basis functions with random variables taken as the weighting factors. Such
a representation allows the parametric and time-varying uncertainty to be treated and quantified together in the standard
framework (O'Neill and Niu 2017).

χ(t) = 𝜇𝜒 (𝑡) + ∑∞
𝑖=1 √𝜆𝑖 𝜓𝑖 (𝑡)𝑦𝑖 (1)

Sensitivity analysis

PEAR index. The PEAR index, which is also known as the Pearson correlation coefficient or the Pearson
product-moment correlation coefficient, is a widely used local sensitivity analysis method. PEAR index is used to
measure the usual linear correlation between two variables (Benesty et al. 2009). Therefore, it is typically suitable for the
linear models or systems. The calculation of the PEAR index is defined in the Equation (2), where x denotes the input,
and y denotes the output. The absolute value of the PEAR index indicates the strength of the linear relationship, and
the sign suggests whether the relationship is positive or negative. This method is widely used for its acceptable accuracy
and low demand for the computational power (Nguyen and Reiter 2015).

∑(𝑥𝑖 −𝑥̅ ).(𝑦𝑖 −𝑦̅)

𝑃= (2)
√∑(𝑥𝑖 −𝑥̅ )2 .∑(𝑦𝑖 −𝑦̅)2

Although the PEAR index can rank the input parameters regarding their influences on the output with less
computational power, it also has some inherent limitations. The calculation of the PEAR index only considers one single
input parameter at a time. Thus, the interactions between the inputs are neglected.
Sobol index. An alternative to the local PEAR index is using the Sobol method. This method is well suited to the
situations where the interactions amongst input parameters are unneglectable and the quantitative analysis is necessary
(Saltelli et al. 2010). Over the last decades, it is well known by both researchers and practitioners for its broad applicability
for the models with known properties (Saltelli and Annoni 2010). Because the Sobol method explores the sensitivities
by placing a handful of data points judiciously in the input space rather than estimating derivative values at a single point
at the center of the space (Saltelli and Annoni 2010), this approach is especially suitable for the complex nonlinear or
non-additive systems/models (Tian 2013). The calculation of the Sobol index is defined in Equuation (3). Y denotes
the chosen model output (univariate) and the 𝑋𝑖 denotes the various inputs. It assumes that the inputs are independent
of each other and are uniformly distributed within the unit hypercube. 𝑓0 is a constant; 𝑓𝑖 is a function of the ith input
parameter, X; 𝑓𝑖,𝑗 is a function of the ith and jth input parameters, 𝑋𝑖 and 𝑋𝑗 . By definition, 𝑓𝑖 represents the influence
by varying 𝑋𝑖 alone, and 𝑓𝑖,𝑗 represents the influence by varying the 𝑋𝑖 and 𝑋𝑗 simultaneously. 𝑓𝑖 and 𝑓𝑖,𝑗 are usually
referred to as the first-order interaction and the second-order interaction respectively. More details about the Sobol
method can be found in (Nguyen and Reiter 2015; Sobol 1993).

Y = 𝑓0 + ∑𝑑𝑖=1 𝑓𝑖 (𝑋𝑖 ) + ∑𝑑𝑖＜𝑗 𝑓𝑖𝑗 (𝑋𝑖 , 𝑋𝑗 ) + ⋯ + 𝑓1,2,..,𝑑 (𝑋1 , 𝑋2 , … , 𝑋𝑑 ) (3)

A key step to conduct a successful Sobol analysis is to select the appropriate response surface model. The
response surface model is usually a machine learning approach which studies the input/output behavior of the model
from the sample set and generates a mathematical function to represent the relationships between inputs and outputs.
Common emulators include ACOSSO (Tian and De Wilde 2011), Bayesian Network (BN) model (O'Neill and Niu
2017), Support Vector Regression (SVR) (Smola and Schölkopf 2004), etc.

CASE STUDY

Model description

The model used in this study is the DOE large hotel prototype building model. The model was created conforming
to the 2015 IECC (International Energy Conservation Code) standard. The model is a 6-story detached structure with
a basement, as shown in Figure 2. It has a total area of 11,345 m2 (122,117 ft2). The building is conditioned by a variant
air volume (VAV) system with a gas boiler as the heating source and an electric chiller as the cooling source. Five
locations (i.e., Burlington in VT, Chicago in IL, Houston in TX, Miami in FL, and San Francisco in CA) were chosen
for this case study in order to include the influence of the climatic conditions on the performance of the DHW system.
These five locations represent five typical climate zones of the United States respectively. They cover a wide range from
the climate zone 1 (Miami) to the climate zone 6 (Burlington).

Figure 2 The outlook of the DOE large hotel prototype building model
The DHW system of the building can be divided into three sub-systems, which are the main system, the kitchen
system, and the laundry system, as illustrated in Figure 3. They supply the hot water to guestrooms, the kitchen, and the
laundry respectively. Each sub-system has a dedicated water heater. The main heater and the laundry heater are fueled
by the natural gas while the booster heater utilizes the electricity. All water heaters are installed with a water tank. The
booster heater is considered as a water use equipment of the main system since it is not a piece of independent
equipment. Its inlet pipe is connected to the distribution network of the main system so that it can reheat the hot water
from 60 °C (140 °F) to 82.2 °C (180 °F) for the usage of cooking services.

Figure 3 The distribution of the DHW system in the DOE prototype large hotel building
Samples

Time-independent parameters. 33 time-independent input parameters with potential effects on the DHW usage
were selected. Based on the functional equipment that these parameters are associated to, they are categorized into four
groups respectively: main heater, booster heater, laundry heater, and water use equipment. The nominal values of these
parameters were assigned based on the baseline model. For the parameters which are associated with an aleatory
uncertainty, the uncertainty is represented as μ ± 3δ, where μ denotes the mean value and δ denotes the standard
deviation of the presented distribution. This method was proposed and validated by Mao et al. (Mao et al. 2017). For
the parameters associated with epistemic uncertainties, they are assumed to conform to a uniform distribution. The
sampling result of the target temperature of the main system water heater is presented in Figure 4(d).
Time varying parameters. Six DHW draw schedules were sampled with KL expansion method in this study.
They are “Guestroom_Weekdays”, “GuestRoom_AllOtherDays”, “Kitchen_Weekdays”, “Kitchen_Saturday”,
“Kitchen_Sunday", and “Laundry” respectively. The water usage of the main and kitchen systems varies throughout the
day, usually peaking in the early morning and night when people are showering, washing, and having dinner. The water
usage of the laundry system, however, is drew on an ON/OFF basis, rather than a fractional basis. The laundry event
happens between 16:00 to 23:00. Two hundred samples were generated for each schedule. Figure 4 shows the selected
sampling results of the three schedules among them, i.e., the schedules of the kitchen system on weekdays (4a), the main
system on weekdays (4b), and the laundry system (4c) respectively. Each example includes ten samples for an illustration
purpose. The bold black line represents the baseline value.
Summary. Both time-independent and time-varying parameters were selected and sampled in this study, as
presented in Table 2. 33 of them are time-independent parameters, and 128 of them are time-varying parameters.
Table 2 The summary of the parameter sampling result
System Time-independent Time-varying Total
Main system 8 48 56
Booster system 7 72 79
Laundry system 6 8 14
Water use equipment 12 12

1.0 Baseline model

0.8 Baseline model
Hot Water Draw Schedule
Main system Weekday
Hot Water Draw Schedule
Kitchen System Weekday

0.8
0.6

0.6

0.4
0.4

0.2
0.2

0.0 0.0
(a) 0 4 8 12 16 20 24 0 4 8 12 16 20 24
Hour (b) Hour
1.2
Hot Water Draw Schedule

40
Laundry System

0.9
Count of Sampls

Baseline model 30

0.6
20

0.3
10

0.0
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 55 60 65 70
Hour SWH Water Heater Target Temperature
(c) (d)

Figure 4 Examples of the samples of input parameters (a, b, and c is time-varying DHW draw schedule of kitchen system on
weekdays, main systems on weekdays, and laundry system respectively. d is the sample result of the target temperature of the main
system water heater.
Sensitivity analysis results

PEAR index. The PEAR indexes were computed and presented in Figure 5. The color code suggests the influence
of the input variable on the output, with larger indices denoted in red and the smallest indices denoted in blue. The
exact values of PEAR indexes can be referred from the color bar on the right. The energy-related outputs are more
sensitive to the time-independent variables while the water consumption is more sensitive to the schedules. The factors
which have apparent influences on DHW gas consumption are the laundry heater maximum capacity,water
heaterthermal efficiency, and the peak use flowrates of water use equipment. The factors which have significant
influence the DHW system electricity consumption are the inlet temperature and setpoint temperature of the booster
heater, and the kitchen weekdays schedule. When it comes to the water consumptions of the whole building and the
DHW system, the most significant factor is the laundry schedule. Besides, the influence of the climate on the SA result
is obvious. In Miami and Houston, where the climate is much warmer compared with the other locations, the impacts
of the schedules of the kitchen system and the main system on the outputs are obviously more significant. At the same
time, the outputs are less sensitive to the time-independent variables.
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160
1.000
HeaterElec_Annual 0.9000
HeaterElec_Peak 0.8000

Miami, FL
0.7000
SysGas_Annual
0.6000
SysGas_Peak
0.5000
HeaterWater_Annual 0.4000
HeaterWater_Peak 0.3000
0.2000
SysWater_Annual
0.1000
SysWater_Peak
0.000
Time independent K_Sat K_Sun K_WkD G_Other G_WkD Laundry
1.000
HeaterElec_Annual 0.9000

Houston, TX
HeaterElec_Peak 0.8000
0.7000
SysGas_Annual
0.6000
SysGas_Peak
0.5000
HeaterWater_Annual 0.4000
HeaterWater_Peak 0.3000
0.2000
SysWater_Annual
0.1000
SysWater_Peak
0.000
Time independent K_Sat K_Sun K_WkD G_Other G_WkD Laundry

1.000
HeaterElec_Annual

San Francisco, CA
0.9000
HeaterElec_Peak 0.8000
0.7000
SysGas_Annual
0.6000
SysGas_Peak
0.5000
HeaterWater_Annual 0.4000
HeaterWater_Peak 0.3000
0.2000
SysWater_Annual
0.1000
SysWater_Peak
0.000
Time independent K_Sat K_Sun K_WkD G_Other G_WkD Laundry

1.000
HeaterElec_Annual 0.9000
HeaterElec_Peak 0.8000
Chicago, IL

0.7000
SysGas_Annual
0.6000
SysGas_Peak
0.5000
HeaterWater_Annual 0.4000
HeaterWater_Peak 0.3000
0.2000
SysWater_Annual
0.1000
SysWater_Peak
0.000
Time independent K_Sat K_Sun K_WkD G_Other G_WkD Laundry

1.000
HeaterElec_Annual 0.9000
HeaterElec_Peak 0.8000
Burlington, VT

0.7000
SysGas_Annual
0.6000
SysGas_Peak
0.5000
HeaterWater_Annual 0.4000
HeaterWater_Peak 0.3000
0.2000
SysWater_Annual
0.1000
SysWater_Peak
0.000
Time independent K_Sat K_Sun K_WkD G_Other G_WkD Laundry

Figure 5 Contour plot of the PEAR index

 Sobol index. The Sobol indices are additive. Figure 6 shows the results of summing the computed first-order
Sobol indices together by the sub-groups that they belong to. The sub-groups are based on Table 2. There are seven
sub-groups in total, which are the time-independent parameters of the main system, the kitchen system, the laundry
system, the water use equipment, and the schedules of the three systems. The result suggests that the sensitivities of the
selected outputs to the seven sub-groups of the inputs are similar for different locations in general: the water draw
schedules of the main system and the kitchen system play dominant roles in most cases. The exceptions are Houston
and Chicago, as marked red in Figure 6. In Houston, the peak water consumption of the whole building is most sensitive
to the laundry system and the laundry schedule related inputs, while the peak/annual electricity consumption is most
sensitive to the kitchen system related inputs. In Chicago, the peak/annual water consumption of the DHW system is
most sensitive to the laundry system and laundry schedule related inputs. Besides, the impact of the kitchen system
related inputs on the peak annual electricity consumption is also obvious in Chicago.
L_Sch L_Sch
G_Sch G_Sch
K_Sch K_Sch
WUE WUE
L Heater L Heater
B Heater B Heater
M Heater M Heater

BW_P BW_A HW_P HW_A Gas_P Gas_A Elec_P Elec_A BW_P BW_A HW_P HW_A Gas_P Gas_A Elec_P Elec_A
Miami, FL Houston, TX

L_Sch
L_Sch
G_Sch
G_Sch
K_Sch
K_Sch
WUE WUE
L Heater L Heater
B Heater B Heater
M Heater M Heater

BW_P BW_A HW_P HW_A Gas_P Gas_A Elec_P Elec_A BW_P BW_A HW_P HW_A Gas_P Gas_A Elec_P Elec_A
San Francisco, CA Chicago, IL

L_Sch Nomenclature:
G_Sch G: Guestroom P: Peak
K_Sch K:Kitchen A: Annual
WUE L: Laundry BW: Building Water
B: Booster HW: Heater Water
L Heater
M: Main WUE: Water Use Equipment
B Heater
Sch:Schedule
M Heater

BW_P BW_A HW_P HW_A Gas_P Gas_A Elec_P Elec_A

Burlington, VT

Figure 6 Sum of the first-order Sobol indices by the sub-group of the input variables

CONCLUSIONS

A sensitivity analysis was conducted in this case study to explore the impacts of the various uncertainties associated
with the equipment and occupant behaviors on the DHW usage patterns in large hotels. The results of the PEAR index
and the Sobol index were similar. The water consumptions are most sensitive to the laundry schedule, while the
electricity and gas consumption are most sensitive to the kitchen and laundry system related input parameters
respectively. Compared with the PEAR index, the outputs are only sensitive to very few input parameters in the Sobol
analysis. The summation of the first-order Sobol indices by the sub-group of input parameters indicates that the
schedules of the main system and the booster kitchen system play dominant roles on the outputs in most cases.
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