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Commercial Building Energy Saver: An energy retrofit analysis toolkit

Author

Listed:
  • Hong, Tianzhen
  • Piette, Mary Ann
  • Chen, Yixing
  • Lee, Sang Hoon
  • Taylor-Lange, Sarah C.
  • Zhang, Rongpeng
  • Sun, Kaiyu
  • Price, Phillip

Abstract

Small commercial buildings in the United States consume 47% of the total primary energy of the buildings sector. Retrofitting small and medium commercial buildings poses a huge challenge for owners because they usually lack the expertise and resources to identify and evaluate cost-effective energy retrofit strategies. This paper presents the Commercial Building Energy Saver (CBES), an energy retrofit analysis toolkit, which calculates the energy use of a building, identifies and evaluates retrofit measures in terms of energy savings, energy cost savings and payback. The CBES Toolkit includes a web app (APP) for end users and the CBES Application Programming Interface (API) for integrating CBES with other energy software tools. The toolkit provides a rich set of features including: (1) Energy Benchmarking providing an Energy Star score, (2) Load Shape Analysis to identify potential building operation improvements, (3) Preliminary Retrofit Analysis which uses a custom developed pre-simulated database and, (4) Detailed Retrofit Analysis which utilizes real-time EnergyPlus simulations. CBES includes 100 configurable energy conservation measures (ECMs) that encompass IAQ, technical performance and cost data, for assessing 7 different prototype buildings in 16 climate zones in California and 6 vintages. A case study of a small office building demonstrates the use of the toolkit for retrofit analysis. The development of CBES provides a new contribution to the field by providing a straightforward and uncomplicated decision making process for small and medium business owners, leveraging different levels of assessment dependent upon user background, preference and data availability.

Suggested Citation

  • Hong, Tianzhen & Piette, Mary Ann & Chen, Yixing & Lee, Sang Hoon & Taylor-Lange, Sarah C. & Zhang, Rongpeng & Sun, Kaiyu & Price, Phillip, 2015. "Commercial Building Energy Saver: An energy retrofit analysis toolkit," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C), pages 298-309.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:159:y:2015:i:c:p:298-309
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.002
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    References listed on IDEAS

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