Improving the energy efficiency of low-income houses has become a national issue in order to establish a social welfare system and to eliminate the energy poverty of the low-income class of people. The purposes of this study are to analyze previous building energy calculation methods and simulation tools in literature, and then, based on the results of reviewing, to develop a simulation program which is conveniently applicable to calculation of the heating and cooling energy of the low-income houses. Also the applicability of the developed simulation program is evaluated by investigating the characteristics of the heating and cooling energy demands of a reference low-income house using our typical meteorological data.
The quasi steady-state calculation method was the most appropriate for calculating the heating and cooling energies of low-income houses, because it contained the dynamic effect as well as simplicity. This study developed Eco House ver.2 program based on the ISO 13790 for its application to calculating the energy efficiency of low-income houses. The Eco House ver.2 program was verified through comparing with Energy Plus (E+) program. The results of both calculations showed a good agreement for the heating energy demand, while there was a little difference for the cooling energy demand. The latter is likely attributed to different numerical simulation algorithms and different input parameters which are provided to the programs.
The application study of the Eco-House ver.2 calculated typical meteorological years using domestic weather data for the last 10 years, and then investigated the influence of the corresponding typical meteorological factors on the heating and cooling demands of a reference low-income house. As the results of the application study, dry bulb temperature was ranked in the order of Seoul <Daejeon <Busan <Jeju. It indicated that the temperature went higher in the lower-latitude regions. Irradiance and direct normal irradiance were listed in the order of Seoul <Jeju <Daejeon <Busan. Jeju had less Irradiance than Busan. It is supposed that Jeju had less irradiance by much clouds and rainy days due to island nature. The dry bulb temperature influenced more on the heating and cooling energy demand than the irradiance. The heating energy demand was concentrated between December and March(in the heating period), and on the other hand, the cooling energy demand is between July and September(in the cooling period). The regional heating energy demand was in the order of Seoul >Daejeon >Jeju >Busan, while the cooling energy demand was in Busan >Jeju >Daejeon >Seoul.