oa Low Cost Bim-based Energy Modelling Techniques To Provide A Decision Support Framework For Energy Retrofits & Consumption Reduction.

Few topics are more relevant in current times than energy management. Fast depleting reserves and record-high prices of fossil fuels and global climatic change are forcing a strategic rethink towards the way we deal with our energy needs, across the globe. Better energy management and energy consumption reduction could help Qatar's economy better achieve its sustainability targets. With buildings consuming over 40% of national energy consumption, reducing in-building energy consumption represent a huge opportunity to achieve energy and corresponding Green House Gas (GHG) emissions reduction. Buildings consume massive amount of Energy, resulting from heavy electrical loads from lighting, cooling and appliance usage. Thus, reducing the consumption of energy in residential and commercial buildings will have a huge impact on total energy savings. The majority of buildings which will be standing in 2050 have already been built, so building owners need to retrofit their buildings in such a way as to optimize greenhouse gases emissions and energy consumption reduction. This research presents a framework to yield optimal energy reduction, to help decided spending of energy retrofit budget in most cost-effective and result oriented manner, by identifying existing building stock with a potential of maximum energy reduction. Existing approaches for building energy performance analysis are either prohibitively expensive (e.g. detailed energy audits by certified experts) or inadequately granular (not providing enough energy feedback; e.g. carbon calculators, energy benchmarks, ROI curves). Also, existing energy modelling processes require weeks or months to construct, before useful information can be provided to guide retrofit decisions. Thus, there is need to complement existing approaches with innovative approaches to building energy modelling. The presented research aims to address technical and cost challenges associated with energy consumption feedback and retrofit decision making. Research aim is to develop a technology driven framework to provide a quick and cost-effective method of undertaking building energy audits using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Energy Simulation technologies. Implementation of such an framework will provide a relatively accurate and inexpensive decision support tool to provide useful energy consumption related information to building users and decision makers. Presented research builds on previous pilot conducted by authors, which demonstrated that BIM/IFC based approaches provide a feasible alternative to conduct energy analysis of existing buildings, provided various correlations are built into the model. The approach does not require specialist energy assessor, auditor or a software expert. After initial calibration, results were obtained within a 5% margin of accuracy. The results could be used for preliminary energy analysis, for exploring different what-if scenarios, providing interactive feedback to building users and for exploring various alternatives to enhance building performance using renewable energy.