Most commercial buildings do not perform as well in practice as intended by the design and their performances often deteriorate over time. Reasons include faulty construction, malfunctioning equipment, incorrectly configured control systems and inappropriate operating procedures (Haves et al., 2001, Lee et al., 2007. To address this problem, the paper presents a simulation-based whole building performance monitoring tool that allows a comparison of building actual performance and expected performance in real time. The tool continuously acquires relevant building model input variables from existing Energy Management and Control System (EMCS). It then reports expected energy consumption as simulated of EnergyPlus. The Building Control Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB) is used as the software platform to provide data linkage between the EMCS, an EnergyPlus model, and a database. This paper describes the integrated realtime simulation environment. A proof-of-concept demonstration is also presented in the paper.

This paper gives an overview of recent developments in the Building Controls Virtual Test Bed (BCVTB), a framework for co-simulation and hardware-in-theloop. First, a general overview of the BCVTB is presented. Second, we describe the BACnet interface, a link which has been implemented to couple BACnet devices to the BCVTB. We present a case study where the interface was used to couple a whole building simulation program to a building control system to assess in real-time the performance of a real building. Third, we present the ADInterfaceMCC, an analog/digital interface that allows a USB-based analog/digital converter to be linked to the BCVTB. In a case study, we show how the link was used to couple the analog/digital converter to a building simulation model for local loop control.