Effect of typical meteorological year selection on integrated daylight modeling and building energy simulation

Abstract

The complete description of outdoor luminous and thermal environment is the basis for daylight utilization design with simulation tools. Nevertheless, Typical Meteorological Year (TMY) and generation method specifically developed for the energy simulation of daylight-utilized buildings is still unavailable currently. Luminous environment parameters have not been taken into consideration in existing TMY generation methods. In this study, the feasibility of existing TMY generation process has been examined. A generic office model implementing sided window daylighting is established. Historical meteorological data of Hong Kong from 1979 to 2007 have been collected and three existing weighting schemes are applied during the Typical Meteorological Month (TMM) selection procedures. Three TMY files for Hong Kong are generated and used to conduct integrated Climate-Based Daylight Modeling and building energy simulation. The result demonstrates that, on annual basis, the energy consumption results obtained from the generated TMY files are in good agreements with the long-term mean annual value. The maximum deviation of annual energy consumptions for the generated TMY files is only 1.8%. However, further analysis on monthly basis shows that all the three generated TMY files fail to fully represent the long-term monthly mean level. The maximum deviation of monthly energy consumptions for the generated TMY files can reach up to 11%. As the energy performance daylight utilization is subject to weather change, analysis on daily and monthly energy level is important, especially during design stage. The deficiency of existing TMM selection process and TMY generation method indicates the necessity to develop a corresponding typical weather data input with finer resolution for the energy simulation of daylight-related buildings.