Building HVAC load profiling using EnergyPlus

Building load profiling plays an important part in the development of optimal energy management systems. Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems consume around 40% to 50% of the total energy consumed by buildings. Using this load data, optimal operation scheduling can be determined to reduce the peak energy requirement and minimize the overall energy consumption. In this paper, EnergyPlus software is used to simulate the load profiles for HVAC loads, for a given building design. Different types of buildings, namely residential and commercial are considered. The main difference between the different types of buildings is in the operation scheduling. The scheduling and parameter like temperature could be altered to derive energy savings. The energy savings would significantly contribute to reduction in energy peak, minimizing the overall energy consumption.