Calibrating Energy Performance Model of a Hospital Building: Dealing with Practical Issues of Data Availability and Granularity in a Case Study Building in the UK
Calibration of energy models is mathematically a highly-parameterized and under-determined problem. Hospitals are energy intensive buildings that have complex and varying specifications for their functions and operations. Calibration of energy models of hospitals is further
challenging due to difficulties such as base-load estimation and end-use disaggregation of a 24-hour running facility’s measured energy use (specially end-uses such as specialist equipment and plug loads). This paper attempts to calibrate the energy model of a hospital building in the UK. Along with design stage building construction documentation, on-site observations and semi-structured stakeholder interviews, energy and
Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) data is collected for
a period of one year. A calibrated energy model is then
used to quantify the effects of the observed energy
performance gap issues found in the building. The energy
and IEQ for the building are compared against design stage targets and industry benchmarks. The paper also
reflects on practicalities of data collection such as
shortcomings in metering, monitoring and observations
that could be addressed for model calibration in hospitals
