Influence of selection methods of external surface heat transfer coefficient on building load forecasting

The external surface heat transfer coefficient (αe) is affected by surface wind speed, roughness and other factors. Taking an office building in Xi’an as an example, adopting different αe selection methods (αe is set as a constant value or calculated based on the SimpleCombined algorithm), simulates and compares the building load using the EnergyPlus software. The results show that, when adopting the SimpleCombined algorithm, the building cumulative heating load during heating period is 13.20% lower than that of setting αe as a constant value, however, the building cumulative cooling load during cooling period is 3.04% higher. Considering the current engineering calculation characteristics and achieving more real load prediction results, suggests adopting the SimpleCombined algorithm to calculate αe when predicting building loads using building energy consumption simulation software.