Stefan Plesser

Stefan Plesser, M. Norbert Fisch, Claas Pinkernell et al.

Energy efficient buildings require high quality standards for all their technical equipment to enable their efficient and successful operation and management. Building simulations enable engineers to design integrated HVAC systems with complex building automation systems to control all their technical functions. Numerous studies show that especially these supposedly innovative buildings often do not reach their energy efficiency targets when in operation. Key reasons for the suboptimal performance are imprecise functional descriptions and a lack of commissioning and monitoring of the technical systems that leave suboptimal operation undetected. In the research project "Energy Navigator" we create a web-based platform that enables engineers to create a comprehensive and precise functional description for the buildings services. The system reuses this functional description - written in an appropriate domain specific language - to control the building operation, to signal malfunctions or faults, and in particular to measure energy efficiency over time. The innovative approach of the platform is the combination of design and control within one artifact linking the phases of design and operation and improving the cost effectiveness for both services. The paper will describe the concept of the platform, the technical innovation and first application examples of the research project.

M. Norbert Fisch, Markus Look, Claas Pinkernell et al.

Research on energy efficiency of today's buildings focuses on the monitoring of a building's behavior while in operation. But without a formalized description of the data measured, including their correlations and in particular the expected measurements, the full potential of the collected data can not necessarily be exploited. Who knows if a measured value is good or bad? This problem becomes more virulent as smart control systems sometimes exhibit intelligent, but unexpected behavior (e.g. starting heating at unconventional times). Therefore we defined a methodology starting already at the design of the building leading to a formalized specification of the implementation of a building's management system, which seamlessly integrates to an intelligent monitoring. DIN EN ISO 16484 proposes a method to describe functional requirements in an easy to understand way. We extended its use of state machines to our proposed concept of state based modeling. This proved to be a wholesome approach to easily model buildings and facilities according to the DIN EN ISO 16484 while providing the possibility to apply sophisticated and meaningful analysis methods during monitoring.

Stefan Plesser, Claas Pinkernell, M. Norbert Fisch et al.

Over the last three decades comprehensive research has been carried out trying to improve commissioning processes with powerful modeling tools and methodologies for data analysis and visualization. Typically addressed application scenarios are facilities management, contracting, special consulting services and measurement & verification as part of a certification process. The results are all but convincing: Monitoring of building operation has so far not become a regular service for buildings. We have identified a lack of process integration as a significant barrier for market success. Most methodologies have so far caused additional initial invest and transaction cost: they added new services instead of improving existing ones. The Energy Navigator, developed by synavision GmbH in cooperation with leading research institutes of the Technical University Braunschweig and the RWTH Aachen University, presents a new methodology with several new approaches. Its software platform uses state graphs and a domain specific language to describe building functions offering an alternative to the software that is so far most widely used for this task: Microsoft Word. The Energy Navigators so called Active Functional Specification (AFS) is used for the technical specification of building services in the design phase. After construction it is completed by the supplier of the BMS (Building Management System) with the relevant sensors data as documentation of his service. Operation data can then automatically be checked for initial and continuous commissioning on whether it meets the criteria of the specification.