A Method to Calibrate Building Simulation Model Through Visual Inspection and Smart Meter

Several energy programs worldwide have used building inspection to overcome the lack of knowledge on technical parameter that are needed to upgrade existing buildings to make them more efficient. Due to the large amount of existing buildings that require to be renovated, energy policies have introduced energy certification as a way to increase the renovation rate, by providing information on several benefits such as energy savings, indoor environment improvements and financial support.

However, these procedures are often simplified due to the high cost that field measurements represent. The most common procedure for residential buildings is a walkthrough or visual inspection and the use of statistical data from a sample of buildings to estimate key characteristics. These simplifications can be seen in certification or labelling programs in order to analyse the building performance and to propose energy conservation measures.

This study uses a case study to propose a method that in combination with building inspection can provided accurate data of the building performance and technical parameters such as U-values, ventilation rate, infiltration and internal load. The method as a firsts step tailored the information gather during the walkthrough in order to be used in the second step which is a calibration based on collected data from the smart meter.

The study case corresponds to a wooden terraced dwelling located in Oslo, the set temperature during winter are different in certain rooms of the dwelling as well their operational schedules. The results show that the uses of smart meter data can effectively improve the results from energy certificate and labelling in existing building, allowing to provide quality information to homeowners and policy makers.