Enhancing House Simulation Models to Reduce CO2 Emissions
Challenge
To produce highly accurate domestic energy simulations as quickly and accurately as possible, without limiting the number of scenarios that could be tested.
Solution
Catapult’s partnership with Claytex created a comprehensive test library for house and HVAC components and used a virtual workbench to boost model performance, running tests in parallel.
Results
Simulation time dropped by about 50% with the same accuracy, enabling roughly twice as many case studies, while parallelization accelerated assessment and deployment of low-carbon heating solutions.
Energy Systems Catapult is an independent research and technology organization. Our mission is to accelerate Net Zero energy innovation.
Launched in 2015 by Innovate UK, Energy Systems Catapult has built a team of more than 250 people, with a range of technical, engineering, consumer, commercial, incubation, digital, and policy expertise. They draw on sector-leading test facilities, modelling tools, and data collected from our back catalogue of more than 500 research projects.
Assessing low-carbon heating system performance
Catapult has developed a modeling tool, Home Energy Dynamics, that simulates energy use in domestic buildings and assesses how low-carbon heating systems perform. The tool provides very accurate predictions but takes a long time to run; the need, therefore, was to improve the speed of the simulations whilst retaining accuracy.
Creating a comprehensive HVAC test library
Using a bottom-up approach, Energy Systems Catapult partnered with Claytex to create a comprehensive test library for the house and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) technology components within Home Energy Dynamics. This virtual workbench was used to improve the overall simulation performance of the models. The library of tests is then executed in a parallel batch of simulation runs to produce the required results.
Reducing simulation time by 50%
Together, we achieved a simulation time reduction of around 50% with equivalent results and accuracy. This means we can execute double the case studies in the same amount of time. Through the Claytex MultiRun Tool, we then parallelized the simulations, which allowed us to complete, for example, 10 simulations in the time it used to take to simulate a single one. Overall, an optimal technology that will reduce the house cooling and heating CO₂ emissions can be assessed, selected, and implemented quicker than was previously possible.
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