Building Energy Performance Using Sheap

This paper describes a Simplified Hourly Energy Analysis Package (SHEAP) for the computation of annual energy consumption in non-residential buildings. The package, developed at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty, uses the transmission matrix method in calculating conduction heat gains through opaque building sections, and adopts the weighting factor method for the calculations of cooling loads, heat extraction rates and actual space air dry bulb temperatures. Typical daily profiles of measured hourly weather data are used to approximate the external climatic conditions over a one-year period. A preliminary validation study indicates that SHEAP produces, reasonably good estimates when compared to the predictions by BUNYIP, a commercial building energy analysis package.