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ABSTRACT

In Canada, builders and energy advisors use HOT2000 for simulation of new housing and retrofits for various labelling, energy rating and incentive programs as well as code compliance. HOT2000 is a monthly building energy simulation tool, specifically made for low-rise residential buildings. It calculates monthly loads from a combination of first principles, and various simple mathematical models developed from hourly simulation tools. As a consequence of the methodology, many state-of-the-art Energy Conservation Measures (ECM) can not be simulated accurately in HOT2000.

A Housing Technology Assessment Platform (HTAP) software was previously developed, using HOT2000 as the simulation engine. HOT2000 was chosen as the simulation engine, because of its wide adoption and acceptance by builders and professionals in Canada. HTAP can run parametric runs, and provide energy demand and costing for a variety of ECMs. However many ECMs require hourly simulations to provide accurate energy demand estimates. In order to be able to evaluate these ECMs in HTAP, a methodology has been developed to estimate hourly heating, cooling, domestic hot water, and plug load profiles using monthly loads, and hourly climate data. This paper presents the approach and its limitations, as well as some validation results.