Energy and thermal modelling of an office building to develop an artificial neural networks model

Abstract

Nowadays everyone should be aware of the importance of reducing CO2 emissions which produce the greenhouse effect. In the field of construction, several options are proposed to reach nearly-Zero Energy Building (nZEB) standards. Obviously, before undertaking a modification in any part of a building focused on improving the energy performance, it is generally better to carry out simulations to evaluate its effectiveness. Using Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) allows a digital twin of the building to be obtained for specific characteristics without using very expensive software. This can simulate the effect of a single or combined intervention on a particular floor or an event on the remaining floors. In this paper, an example has been developed based on ANN. The results show a reasonable correlation between the real data of the Operative Temperature with the Energy Consumption and their estimates obtained through an ANN model, trained using an hourly basis, on each of the floors of an office building. This model confirms it is possible to obtain simulations in existing public buildings with an acceptable degree of precision and without laborious modelling, which would make it easier to achieve the nZEB target, especially in existing public office buildings.