Building simulation: Ten challenges

• Published in: Building simulation Vol. 11; no. 5; pp. 871 - 898
• Main Authors: Hong, Tianzhen, Langevin, Jared, Sun, Kaiyu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.10.2018; Springer Nature B.V; Springer
• Subjects: Atmospheric Protection/Air Quality Control/Air Pollution; Building Construction and Design; building energy use; building life cycle; building performance simulation; Buildings; Computer simulation; Energy conservation; ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; Energy consumption; Energy costs; energy efficiency; Energy management; energy modeling; Engineering; Engineering Thermodynamics; Greenhouse gases; Heat and Mass Transfer; Life cycle engineering; Monitoring/Environmental Analysis; Researchers; Retrofitting; Review Article; Simulation; Software development; zero-net-energy buildings; building life cycle; zero-net-energy buildings; building energy use; energy modeling; building performance simulation; energy efficiency
• ISSN: 1996-3599; 1996-8744
• DOI: 10.1007/s12273-018-0444-x

Buildings consume more than one-third of the world’s primary energy. Reducing energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions in the buildings sector through energy conservation and efficiency improvements constitutes a key strategy for achieving global energy and environmental goals. Building performance simulation has been increasingly used as a tool for designing, operating and retrofitting buildings to save energy and utility costs. However, opportunities remain for researchers, software developers, practitioners and policymakers to maximize the value of building performance simulation in the design and operation of low energy buildings and communities that leverage interdisciplinary approaches to integrate humans, buildings, and the power grid at a large scale. This paper presents ten challenges that highlight some of the most important issues in building performance simulation, covering the full building life cycle and a wide range of modeling scales. The formulation and discussion of each challenge aims to provide insights into the state-of-the-art and future research opportunities for each topic, and to inspire new questions from young researchers in this field.