Case Study of the Operational Energy Consumption and Carbon Emissions From a Building in Nanjing Based On a System Dynamics Approach

Buildings are responsible for more than forty percent of global energy consumption and as much as one third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, the energy conservation and exhaust reduction of a building can be easily understood by accurately calculating a building's carbon emissions during its operational stage. In the present study, a system dynamics (SD) approach to calculate the energy consumption and carbon emissions from a building during its operational stage is quantitatively developed through a case study on an office building in Nanjing. The obtained results demonstrate that: a) the difference between the results of SD and that of EnergyPlus is so small that a SD approach is acceptable; b) the variation between the real monitored data and that of simulation by SD and EnergyPlus is reasonable; c) the physical meanings of the variables in the SD model are clear; d) the parameters of the SD model and the relationships between the variables can be determined by a qualitative-and-quantitative combined analysis.