Energy Monitoring and Analysis of a Residential House in China

Abstract

The energy consumption of residential buildings plays a crucial role in overall energy consumption and environmental sustainability. This paper aims to conduct an energy analysis of a residential house located in China, with a focus on comparing the accuracy of the model, identifying areas for improvement, and proposing energy-efficient solutions. Four sets of temperature sensors were placed to monitor the ambient temperature at which the building is located and the indoor temperature of the residential building during a heating season. The energy consumption of keeping the building running at a low temperature was recorded and compared with the simulation results to verify the accuracy of the model. The monitoring results give the weekly average temperature of each zone on each floor, and the door and window positions, room layouts, and orientations are discussed to analyze the thermal response of the building. In addition, the effect of the heat transfer coefficient of the exterior walls, the heat transfer coefficient of the roof, and the solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC) of the exterior windows on the heating energy consumption of the building are further analyzed through simulations. The results show that, after adding a certain thickness of insulation to the exterior walls and roofs of a building, increasing the thickness of the insulation layer produces little extra energy saving. The use of building windows with high SHGC can effectively reduce building heating energy consumption.

Keywords

• residential building
• energy monitoring
• energy simulation
• parametric study
• optimization analysis