The predictability of lumped BES models, a case study

The indoor climate is the key element that combines crucial issues like energy and thermal comfort. Lumped models are often used to simulate the indoor climate. The objective of the paper is to investigate the predictability of these type of models. The research approach was to study a well measured and documented case and try to extract some general rules from it. Preliminary results show that: (1) 90% of the time the plant energy measurements are in between the simulated bandwidth when all parameters are varied according to most uncertain case scenario. (2) Similarly, 30% of the time the relative humidity measurements are within the simulated bandwidth. (3) In this specific case, simulation results seem most sensitive for changes in insulation material layer thickness, ventilation rate and the internal surface heat transfer resistance. Most important and contrary to the expectations, it seems that even in the most uncertain scenarios, the measurements do not fit within the simulated bandwidths.