Energy assessment of a cold store by dynamic simulation

Nowadays, the world of construction underwent a major revolution. Buildings are responsible for more than 40% of global energy consumption. Awareness of the energy performance of the building and its operation are critical steps toward sustainable development. To design a sustainable building, the total energy requirements of the building should be kept to a minimum. None of this is possible without proper building architectural design. As a result, to achieve the building with desired quality and standard, all aspects should be taken into practice at all stages of design and construction. Energy consumption is assessed using different methods to precast a behavior of a building’s energy consumption. Many factors should be considered while designing an energy-efficient building. Therefore, computer simulation is used to simulation processes. In this project, DesignBuilder has been used to design and simulate the performance of the cold store. In the design phase, building materials for each structural part of this cold store are defined in the software. Also, by defining two different insulators (PIR/PUR Polyurethane), there is a possibility to compare them, and it can be concluded that PIR Polyurethane has a better performance than PUR Polyurethane. In addition, by defining various parameters such as lighting, the number of people and the time of their presence, and definition of HVAC system, the simulation can be performed. We concluded that to have the desired temperature, a heating system should also be designed for winter, therefore a heating system is defined and its schedule adjusted for the seasons when the zone air temperature becomes less than 5 °C. Finally, by defining all the parameters and systems, the simulation was performed for a period of one year. As a result, the amount of annual energy required is calculated. By comparing the results obtained by two different insulation, we conclude that PIR Polyurethane insulation has a better result.