Cooling Strategies Based on Indicators of Thermal Storage in Commercial Building Mass

摘要

Building thermal mass and multi-day regimes ofhot weather are important, yet poorly understood,contributors to cooling energy requirements. Thispaper develops load-shifting sub-cooling and precoolingequipment operating strategies to address a specific instance of this phenomenon, in which thermalstorage by building mass over weekends exacerbatesMonday cooling energy requirements. The studyrelies on computer simulations of energy use for alarge, office building prototype in El Paso, TXusing the DOE-2 building energy analysis program.The economic value of the strategies is evaluatedwith direct reference to utility rate schedules anda crude measure of thermal storage is related to theenergy impacts of the strategies. The indicators are based on core zone air temperatures, which aresampled a t night when HVAC systems are not in use.The suggestion is made that the results and proposedstrategies could be adapted for use by computerizedenergy management systems to reduce building energyoperating costs.