It is clear that current industry process needs to improve in order to routinely deliver comfortable low carbon buildings. Overheating in buildings designed to be low energy is one of the key symptoms of current problems. Many initiatives aim to improve building performance and the industry process. A selection are reviewed including the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD); the Green Star, LEED, BREEAM and NABERS rating schemes; the PH standard; the Soft Landings process and Building Information Modelling (BIM). The BIM approach is being actively promoted based on the assertion that buildings industry process has stagnated compared to other industries suggested as productivity benchmarks such as the electronics industry. This study highlights the potential role that could be played by Building Information Modelling (BIM) as a framework to address the performance gaps, and suggests that processes from the BIM benchmark industries should be investigated for potential adoption. The organisational context and processes of the electronics industry are described and it is proposed that they could be usefully adapted to reduce the scale and impacts of the building industry performance gap. Key conclusions are that public domain performance data is important and that the adoption of a quality systems approach will be required to deliver the intended performance in practice, eliminate overheating and avoid excess energy use.

Gaps between intended and actual performance which impact on indoor environment, energy use and carbon emissions have been well documented and are nowhere more important than when they present in performance problems such as building overheating and consequent occupant discomfort and high energy running costs. Here, such gaps are explored through a review of relevant literature and related illustrative investigations. Key drivers of those performance gaps are identified and located in the stages of the building industry process. Three case studies, of one office and two houses, are provided, highlighting where faults arise and may or may not be effectively dealt with and the reasons why. These include faults at the Implementation, Validation and Operation stages and the paper concludes by summing up generic failings in the industry that lead into the following paper by the same authors that offers an approach and potentially effective solutions to reduce such performance gaps by correctly using a BIM approach to quality control in the construction industry

The drive to reduce worldwide Carbon Emissions directly associated with dwellings and to achieve a zero carbon home dictates that Renewable Energy Technologies will have an increasingly large role in the built environment. Created by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) is the UK Government's approved methodology for assessing the energy ratings of dwellings. This paper presents an evaluation of the advantage given to SAP ratings by the domestic installation of typical Photovoltaic (PV) and Solar Domestic Hot Water (SDHW) systems in the UK. Comparable PV and SDHW systems will also be simulated with more detailed modelling packages. Results suggest that calculation variances can exist between the SAP methodology and detailed simulation methods, especially for higher performance systems that deviate from the default efficiency parameters

Purpose -The purpose of this research is to design a robust high-performance nonlinear multi-input multi-output heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system controller for temperature and relative humidity regulation. Buildings are complex systems which are subjected to many unknown disturbances. Further complicating the control problem is the fact that, in practice, buildings and their systems have static nonlinearities such as power saturation that make stability difficult to guarantee. Therefore, in order to overcome these issues, a control system must be designed to be robust (performance insensitive) against uncertainties, static nonlinearities and effectively respond to unknown heat load and moisture disturbances. Design/methodology/approach -A state of the art nonlinear inverse dynamics (NID) technique is combined with a genetic algorithm (GA) optimisation scheme in order to improve robustness against uncertainty in the system's modelling assumptions. The parameter uncertainty problem is addressed by optimising the control system parameters over a specified range of uncertainty. The NID control structure provides further robustness with effective disturbance handling and a stability criteria that holds in the presence of actuator saturation. Findings -The proposed method delivers significantly more energy efficient performance whilst achieving improved thermal comfort when compared with a current industry standard HVAC controller design such as proportional-integral-derivative. The expected excellent response to disturbances is also demonstrated. Research limitations/implications -This method can easily be extended to account for other parameters with a specified uncertainty range. Practical implications -This research presents a method of optimised NID controller design which can be easily implemented in real HVAC controllers of building energy management systems with a high degree of confidence to provide high levels of thermal comfort whilst significantly reducing energy usage. Originality/value -A novel HVAC optimised NID control strategy using the robust inverse dynamics estimation feedback control topology with GA optimisation for improved robustness and tuning over a range of parameter uncertainty is described, designed and its performance benefits shown through simulation studies.

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