The Empirical Validation of House Energy Rating (HER) Software for Lightweight Housing in Cool Temperate Climates

This book reports on the first empirical validation of AccuRate, Australia's national benchmark software tool for house energy ratings. The validation was conducted by the University of Tasmania in collaboration with Forest and Wood Products Australia, the Australian Government, the CSIRO and industry partners. The study presented here describes the results of graphical and statistical analysis of variations observed between the measured and simulated data from three different test buildings in Launceston, Tasmania. It shows that, while the AccuRate software is well suited to modeling energy flows, there are discrepancies between the simulated and measured temperatures of the test buildings. Moreover, it highlights possible connections between the discrepancies in all zones and the outside air temperature, wind speed, global and diffuse solar radiation, and possibly the ground model. Beyond its contribution to further investigations into the ongoing improvement and calibration of the Australian NatHERS-supported AccuRate software, this book also meticulously describes the methodology used in conducting the research, which is expected to pave the way for further studies of this type.

Nominated as outstanding PhD thesis by the University of Tasmania, Australia Presents the first empirical validation of the 'AccuRate' software, with a particular attention to cool temperate climates Includes an in-depth discussion on the history of building modeling and simulation Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Inhalt

Introduction .- Background to Australian House Energy Rating.- Background to HER Program Validation.- Methodology.- Results, Analysis and Discussion of Empirical Validation.- Conclusion.