Lecture 1: Introduction

Building Energy Management and Optimization

CIVE 5708

Araz Ashouri PhD

Adjunct Research Professor
Civil & Environmental Engineering
Who am I?
• Adjunct Professor, Carleton
• Research Officer, NRC
• Construction Research Centre (Montreal Rd, Ottawa)
• Optimization of operation in federal buildings (NRC, PSPC, DND, NRCan, etc.) to
improve energy efficiency and comfort

• PhD in Mechanical Engineering (2014), ETH Zurich, CH

• Design and Operation of Energy Systems

• MSc in Control Engineering (2010), Chalmers, SE

• BSc in Electrical Engineering (2008), IUST, IR
Some housekeeping…

- Lectures and recordings

- Attendance
- Questions
- Duration and Breaks
Let’s hear from you:

- Your name
- Your degree program and department
- Your education background
Energy use background
• Energy use is central to the functioning and
development of societies
• Large amounts of energy are used in the world
• We are close to running out of conventional energy
resources (currently supplies 85% of needs)
• Energy use is causing other societal problems
 • World primary energy use has increased exponentially
• Worldwide energy use: 500 ExaJoules (1018 Joules)
• Annual growth is about 2% : doubling time ~ 35 years

Boyle et al., 2003

Why do we care about buildings?

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Building Energy Scene in North America
• Buildings consume
• 40% of the total energy
• 70% of electricity produced
• Responsible for 35% of CO2
• $785 billion (6.1% of GDP)- new construction
• $483 billion (3.3% of GDP)- retrofits and repairs
• About 80% of building stock build before 1990 (as of 2010)
• About 2% undergo major retrofits each year
• Opportunities in Commercial Building energy saving (OTA,1998):
• Current cost-effective technology ~ $20 B/yr (25% energy savings)
• Advanced/intelligent technology ~ $50 B/yr (over 50%)
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Indoor climate control in buildings plays a critical role on:
• energy consumption (over 20%)
• GHG emissions (over 15%)
• total and peak electricity demand (over 70%)
• need for new energy infrastructure
• grid stability, reliability, and resilience

Design Construction Operation

Often 10 times more than the

embodied energy for design and
construction phase
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 Future of Energy Use

• Increase in popularity of building integrated renewable

energy systems
• By 2040, 33% of all vehicles are projected to be electric
• Improvements in the battery technologies
• Traditional generation-transmission-distribution path of
electricity will become multi-directional as more buildings will
become prosumers instead of consumers

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Laboratory-scale experimentation Field research
e.g., guarded hot-box e.g., post-occupancy evaluation,
Waterloo NRC continuous commissioning, surveys

Component modelling
e.g., Therm, Window 7, COMSOL

Building performance simulation

e.g., EnergyPlus, ESP-r, Daysim

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Buildings use 30% more energy than
intended and we don’t know why

Predicted Measured
Performance Performance

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What is wrong with our buildings?
Soft faults
• Inappropriate control of the indoor climate

Canal Building supplies 10 m3/s

outdoor air (enough for 1000
occupants) from 6 am to 8 pm
Hobson et al. (2019)
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100%
Shc, Shrw, Sh, Srad
Sdp,oa
Sdp,ra
Scc
0%
Outdoor temperature

Ideal operation of an AHU

Operation of a real AHU

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What is wrong with our buildings?
Soft faults

• Many government buildings in

Ottawa start operating at 4 am
year-round to ensure that the
average space temperature is
comfortable at 7 am

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What is wrong with our buildings?
Soft faults
• We identified that on most days the setback-to-setpoint transition takes
much less than 2 hours
• Tuning schedules to optimal preheat / precool periods can save about 5%
in heating & cooling energy use

18
 Thermostat use in a private office in a heating season

Setpoint
decrease
Opened
Occupied windows
periods

Not everyone likes 22°C

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 Temperatures at thermostat
keypress instances – 20 offices

• Everyone has a different temperature preference.

• Temperature preferences change seasonally.
• One-third of the keypress actions were because occupants were too cold
in the summer and too hot in the winter.

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What is wrong with our buildings?
Hard faults
• Carleton has nearly 0.5 million sensors, actuators,
meters with a typical lifetime of 10 to 20 years
• Manual commissioning is labour intensive & invasive
• Need to remotely & automatically detect these issues

zones with a faulty

airflow sensor or a VAV
damper

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• Traditionally O&M issues are identified through energy
audits & retro-commissioning alone:
• Manual, labour intensive, and costly ($0.5 per m2 for a simple walk
through to $3 per m2 for detailed audits)
• Carleton has 500,000 m2 indoor space – conducting detailed audits
annually (without fixing these problems) can cost up to $1.5 million
per year.
• That’s about 15% of the $9 million utility cost of the university. So,
you need to identify 15% savings every year to justify energy audits
every year.
• Invasive in already tenant occupied spaces
• Infrequently, if ever, conducted so energy intensive issues remain
invisible for many years
 Smart Buildings initiative by the
• Cost of sensing and metering is decreasing federal government
• Standardization of data exchange protocols
• Owner and facilities managers begin to
understand the value of data-driven O&M
research
• Need for people who can take O&M data and
develop actionable insights that can guide
better O&M decisions.

Ecobee Donate Your Data

Program
 While we have established tools to support the design phase of a
building; diagnostic tools for the operation phase are much less
sophisticated, standardized, and widely-used.

• Modern buildings are equipped with a

large network of sensors and data
archiving infrastructure
• Operational data sources offer an
untapped opportunity to identify:
• soft faults
• Inappropriate control sequences
• hard faults
• failed sensors, dampers, valves
• poor envelope
BAS Meter IT CMMS • continuous monitoring and detection
of high air leakage and thermal
conductance locations

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 Engineering education is focused on
design not process

Statistics is a shadowy mathematical

nightmare, and … a weakness
forever often taken in the second-year
of undergraduate education before
taking any domain specific courses

Prof. Agami Reddy

This was okay when we did not have so much operation data, but today we collect
data in every aspect of life. This renders opportunities to improve the design and
operation by monitoring the real-life performance of engineering products.
Outline of the course

1. Description of typical building HVAC systems and components

2. Energy audits and retro-commissioning
3. Data-driven methods to improve maintenance
1. Inverse modelling and remote energy auditing
2. Benchmarking
3. Fault detection and diagnostics
4. Predictive and preventive maintenance
4. Data-driven methods to improve controls
1. Occupancy detection and prediction (adaptive controls)
2. Load forecasting
3. Predictive controls
4. Demand response
Use of Matlab programming language is required.
Matlab license with all required packages is available for students:
https://carleton.ca/its/all-services/computers/site-licensed-software/matlab-students/

• Project (50%)
• Assignments (50%)
• Assignment 1 (10%) – Change point models
• Assignment 2 (10%) – Multiple linear regression and artificial neural networks
• Assignment 3 (10%) – Load forecasting with time-series modelling
• Assignment 4 (10%) – Part-load efficiencies and optimal equipment sequencing
• Assignment 5 (10%) – Modelling and optimal start of an AHU
• Reference book
Applied Data Analysis and Modeling for Energy Engineers and
Scientists, Agami Reddy – free download through Carleton
Library

• Office hours
• Please email me to make an appointment
Araz.Ashouri@Carleton.ca

• Prior knowledge?
• Elementary Building Science
• Some programming skills
 Description of typical building
HVAC systems and components
• A building's HVAC system consists of four main parts
• Primary systems or central plant
• Distribution system
• Terminal devices
• Controls
Typical setup in commercial buildings
Primary HVAC equipment

• Boilers
• Heat is generated by burning natural gas or oil to
convert water to steam or hot water
• Steam or hot water is then pumped to a building
• A valve modulates gas flow depending on the pressure
sensor reading, while the flue gases escape out of a flue
stack with an adjustable damper.
• Forced draft and induced draft fans modulate the
combustion process
6.6 MW Boiler in Central Heating and Cooling Plant
Primary HVAC equipment

• Chillers
• Heat drawn from the space is picked up by the
refrigerant in the evaporator at a lower temperature
• The heat is then rejected to the outdoor air in the
condenser at a higher temperature
• Compressor draws electric power in order to accomplish
this heat transfer
• A chiller is sometimes coupled with a cooling tower
A 5 MW Chiller
• Secondary systems also referred as systems
• Distribute the heating and cooling to the specific rooms and zones
in the building
• Working fluid can be water (or steam) or air streams
• Heat / coolth is picked up from primary devices and distributed to
the building – hydronic or air systems
• The thermal energy is then transferred either directly to the room
air by terminal devices such as radiators or fan coil units or
transferred to an air stream, which is then supplied to the room via
terminal boxes and room diffusers.
• Secondary systems include
• Distribution system: ducts and pipes to carry the working fluids
• Equipment to move the working fluid: fans and pumps
• Devices such as heating and cooling coils to transfer heat between
fluid and air to be supplied to a room
• Terminal devices to control, deliver, and distribute heating or
cooling air to various points inside a room such as radiators or fan-
coil units, or room diffusers
Health Sciences Building
Terminal devices
Source: http://medium.com/@clareruskint
 VAV terminal unit with reheat

Source: http://www.simplyvav.com
 Controls

Setpoint Error
+_ Controller Actuator Device

Measurement

Sensor
Outdoor air Outdoor air

AHU 1 AHU 2

Hot water to heating coils

Boiler

Hot water to perimeter

heaters and reheat coils

AHU 1 AHU 2
VAV 1 VAV 1

AHU 1 AHU 2
VAV 2 VAV 2
Next lecture
• Energy audits
• Assignment 1