ThermalSim: A Thermal Simulator for Error Analysis

TL;DR

ThermalSim is a novel thermal building simulator designed to analyze how weather and occupancy prediction errors impact HVAC energy efficiency and occupant comfort in commercial buildings.

Contribution

It introduces a new simulation tool capable of quantifying the effects of prediction errors on HVAC performance, addressing limitations of existing simulators.

Findings

ThermalSim effectively models the impact of prediction errors.

The simulator provides insights into HVAC energy consumption.

It aids in designing more robust predictive control strategies.

Abstract

Researchers have extensively explored predictive control strategies for controlling heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) units in commercial buildings. Predictive control strategies, however, critically rely on weather and occupancy forecasts. Existing state-of-the-art building simulators are incapable of analysing the influence of prediction errors (in weather and occupancy) on HVAC energy consumption and occupant comfort. In this paper, we introduce ThermalSim, a building simulator that can quantify the effect of prediction errors on the HVAC operations. ThermalSim has been implemented in C/C++ and MATLAB. We describe its design, use, and input format.