ENERGY SAVINGS ANALYSIS OF FUEL-CELL MICRO-GENERATION

SYSTEMS IN LOAD-SHARING BUILDINGS

S. Choa,*, E.C. Kangb, and E.J. Leeb

a
North Carolina State University, 50 Pullen Rd., Campus Box 7701, Raleigh, NC,
United States of America, soolyeon_cho@ncsu.edu
b
Korea Institute of Energy Research, 102 Gajeong-ro, Yuseong-gu, Daejon, 305-
343, Republic of Korea

consistently growing. Knowing this fact, the

ABSTRACT
This paper presents the potential energy
savings of implementing Fuel-Cell Micro-
Generation (FCMG) systems in Load-Sharing
buildings (House and Office). The energy
modelling and simulation technology are used to
evaluate the effectiveness of FCMG in buildings,
using the EnergyPlus program developed by the
United States Department of Energy (USDOE).
This study is a continuation of simulation
modelling research projects, which include
seven scenarios; i.e., Case-1) House, Case-2)
Office, Case-3) Simple Sum of House and
Office, Case-4) Load-Sharing between House
and Office, Case-5) Ground Source Heat Pump
(GSHP) systems in Load-Sharing buildings,
Case-6) FCMG in Load-Sharing Buildings with
GSHPs, and 7) Photovoltaic & Thermal (PV-T)
systems in Load-Sharing buildings with GSHPs.
The energy savings analysis of Case-4 was
already presented in elsewhere. This paper
focuses on the simulation modelling analysis of
Case-5 (GSHP) and Case-6 (FCMG application
in the Load-Sharing Buildings with GSHPs).
There are a number of simulation programs to
evaluate the performance of buildings with
various electric, mechanical, and thermal
systems. However, it is still a challenge to model
and simulate the FCMG systems using the
existing whole building simulation programs.
Therefore, this paper overviews the current
technology of simulation modelling of FCMG.
The simulation results and energy savings
analysis are also presented in comparison with
other different modelling scenarios.
Keywords: Fuel Cell, Micro Generation, Energy
Modeling, Simulation, EnergyPlus.
INTRODUCTION
Buildings are the largest consumer of resources
in the United States. The building sector
consumes about 40 per cent of primary energy
and 70 per cent of electricity, which is more
energy consumption than either industrial or
transportation sector [1]. Both residential and
commercial building energy consumptions are
building practitioners are constantly trying to
develop more energy efficient buildings while
maintaining and/or improving the human comfort
at the same time. As specific responses, there
are initiatives and challenges that have been set
by both private and public sectors such as
Architecture 2030 Challenge [2] and 2025
Commercial Buildings Initiative [3]. The US
Department of Energy (DOE) has come up with
the Net-Zero Commercial Building Initiative
(CBI), which strives to develop Net-Zero Energy
Buildings (NZEBs) for commercial buildings by
the year 2025. A NZEB is a building, which can
generate an equivalent amount of energy as it
consumes in a year period. The CBI was
launched in the year 2008, and USDOE is
collaborating with National Laboratory
Collaborative on Building Technologies
(NLCBT), architectural and engineering
companies, and building owners to meet the
goals of the project. While USDOEs 2025 NZEB
Initiative is driven by a public sector, the
Architecture 2030 Challenge is from a private
sector initiated by Edward Mazria and his
organization known as Architecture 2030 [2]. Its
target is Carbon-Neutral buildings by 2030. To
achieve either carbon-neutral buildings by 2030
or NZEBs by 2025, two major activities are
outstanding, which are Energy Efficiency and
Renewable Energy.
As part of specific systems level energy
efficiency improvement efforts, decentralized
cogeneration systems are an attractive
alternative to traditional electrical supply. The
cogeneration systems can achieve overall
efficiencies greater than 90%, including both
electricity and thermal energy generations,
based on the lower heating value by exploiting
the simultaneous electric and thermal output of
cogeneration devices [4]. The electrical
efficiencies of the state-of-the-art fossil-fuel-fired
central power plants can be achieved about
55% [5] [6]. In contrast to the central power
plants, the micro-generation systems, known as
residential cogeneration as small scale
combined heat and power, have only modest
fuel-to-electrical conversion efficiencies less
than 10 per cent [7] [8]. However, it has been Case-4 Chiller + Boiler + Load-
shown that the Solid-Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) Fan Coil Fan Coil Sharing
technologies have potential to achieve electrical
efficiencies as high as 45 per cent [9], although
Case-5 GSHP + GSHP + Load-
this efficiency level is still hard to realize in Fan Coil Fan Coil Sharing w/
actual devices. As a result, utilizing the thermal GSHP
output of the micro-generation system is the key Case-6 FCMG + FCMG + Load-
aspect to achieve the higher overall efficiencies GSHP + GSHP + Sharing w/
compared to the central power generation Fan Coil Fan Coil GSHP &
technologies.
FCMG
In this study, the SOFC micro-generation
system was used in the EnergyPlus whole
building simulation. To achieve the maximum Case-1 & Case-2: It starts with a prototypical
efficiency of the system, the exhaust gas heat is Korean house model that shows conventional
recovered through the gas-to-water heat annual energy consumption and energy use
exchanger to preheat the domestic hot water. patterns. Figure 1 shows the graphical and
The case models include Ground Source Heat conceptual HVAC diagram of the Case-1 house
Pumps (GSHPs) as primary heating and cooling (a) and the Case-2 office (b). The thermal
systems in the load-sharing buildings between a energy of the buildings is provided by the boiler
residence and an office. This paper presents the and chiller through hot and chilled water. The
energy savings potentials by comparing both chilled water and hot water go through the
load-sharing, GSHPs, and SOFC micro- cooling and heating coils in the fan coil units to
generation systems to the base-case or non- generate the cooling and heating effects. The
load-sharing case. boiler is also used as heat source for the
domestic hot water generation. The main
SIMULATION CASE SCENARIONS difference between the house and office is not
Total of six different energy simulation modelling the systems but the load patterns. Residences
scenarios were developed. Table 1 summarizes usually show high load profiles in the night time,
the six modelling cases along with the heating while offices show high energy loads in the
and cooling system types for individual daytime. This is obvious since the people are
scenarios. Case-1 through Case-4 include the main energy users.
chiller/boiler systems with fan coil units. The
Case-4 scenario was to verify the potential
energy savings from the load-sharing
technologies compared to the simple sum of
individual buildings separate energy uses from
both house and office. The results of these
studies were published elsewhere [10] [11]. The
fan coil units are located inside the building. The
Domestic Hot Water (DHW) tank is also installed
inside the house and connected with the boiler
via pipelines for energy supply. Case-5 replaces
the chiller/boiler systems with GSHPs. The (a)
GSHPs provide heating and cooling to both
house and office at the same time. The final
scenario, Case-6, includes FCMG systems on
top of GSHPs to see the potential benefits of
SOFC systems in the load-sharing buildings.

Table 1: Six Case Scenarios and

Heating/Cooling System Types
Scenario Cooling Heating Remarks (b)
Case-1 Chiller + Boiler + House Only Figure 1: Schematic HVAC System Diagrams of
Fan Coil Fan Coil House (a) and Office (b)
Case-2 Chiller + Boiler + Office Only
Fan Coil Fan Coil Case-3 & Case-4: The third scenario, Case-3, is
Case-3 Case-1 + Case-1 + Simple Sum just a simple sum of the house and the office to
show the magnitude of the total energy use and
Case-2 Case-2 to compare it with the load sharing scenario or
Case-4. So, Figure 2 depicts the simple sum of
the two cases or Case-1+Case-2. Each building
has separated chiller and boiler units. Case-3 is
used as a reference case in this study for the
energy savings analyses.
Figure 2: Case-3 (Reference Case)_Separate
Load Systems with Simple Sum of Case-1 and
Case-2
Compared to Case-3, Case-4 is the load-sharing
scenario, which uses one HVAC system to
provide heating and cooling to both house and
office. The load sharing energy model is
developed to evaluate the potential energy
benefits from the load sharing. Figure 3 shows
how the load sharing and combined HVAC
system scenario was developed.
Figure 3: Case-4 (Load Sharing)_One Chiller
and One Boiler Proving Thermal Energy to Both
House and Office
th
Case-5: The 5 simulation scenario replaces the
chiller and boiler systems with GSHPs. The
GSHPs are water-to-water systems, so that the
fan coil units stay the same receiving chilled
water and hot water from the GSHPs. As shown
in Figure 4, vertical ground loops are included to
utilize the geothermal energy for the heat pump
systems, which improve the heat pump system
efficiencies substantially.
Figure 4: Load-Sharing HVAC Systems with
GSHPs including Vertical Boreholes
Case-6: Finally, a SOFC micro-generation
system is presented in Figure 5 along with the
GSHP system. This hybrid system provides both
electricity and thermal energy to house and
office at the same time. The SOFC micro-
generation system is added to the Case-5
model, which generates electricity and thermal
energy. The electricity generated in SOFC is
used to run the buildings and the GSHP system.
FC Pump
Main Pump DC AC
n
Load Fan Coil Unit
T Flow meter Fuel Cell
Inverter
i 1 3 Way valve GS Tank Pump GSHP Pump
House GSHP
T
T
3 Way valve
Hot Water
Tank
Desuper
Office heater
Natural Gas
GHX
T
Cold Water
n Tank
Demand
i 1
DHW
City Water
Figure 5: Load-Sharing Diagram with GSHP and
SOFC Micro-Generation System
SIMULATION MODELING PROGRAM
The whole building energy simulation program,
EnergyPlus, was used for this study [12].
EnergyPlus is one of the most advanced
building energy simulation programs developed
by the United States Department of Energy
(USDOE), which has greater capabilities with
modular structures compared to other similar
thermal simulation programs [13]. It allows for
performing simulations of the building and the
HVAC systems as a whole. The EnergyPlus
program was utilized as it is a heat balance-
based simulation program, and the heat balance
method is the current industry standard method
for calculating the space thermal loads [14].
EnergyPlus is one of the five simulation
platforms that have been tested using the
IEA/ECBCS Annex 42 SOFC cogeneration
models, along with ESP-r [15], EES [16], IDA-
ICE [17], and TRNSYS [18]. The mathematical
model of the program was validated through
inter-program comparative testing [19].
EnergyPlus includes both SOFC and PEMFC
models. The SOFC model was used in this
study.
CLIMATE CONDITIONS AND
WEATHER FILE
This study is based on the weather condition of
the nations capital, Seoul, South Korea.
However, the Incheon International Airport (ICN)
weather file was used as the EnergyPlus
Weather (EPW) file is available for ICN [20].
This weather file includes 30-year typical hourly
weather conditions for energy calculations. The
annual average outdoor dry bulb temperature is
12 degree Celsius, and the maximum global
horizontal solar radiation occurs historically in
2
April with about 600 W/m , but the highest
average daily total occurs in June with 4,675
2
Wh/m . There are 5,096 Heating Degree Days
(HDDs) with the base temperature of 65 F (18.3
C) and 2,412 Cooling Degree Days (CDDs) with
the base temperature of 55.5 F (13 C).
HOUSE AND OFFICE SIMULATION
MODELS
The Case-1 House simulation model consists of
2
a square-shaped, 200 m house in Korea. It
includes four exterior zones and one interior
zone. The four exterior zones are all identical in
2
shape and size (43.75 m ) with the perimeter
zone depth of 4.57 meters. Consequently, the
2
interior zone was sized to 25 m , which is
isolated from the outdoor weather variations.
This is one-story building with window-to-wall
ratio of 40% for all facades. The floor-to-floor
height is 3.0 meters with the return air plenum
height of 0.3 meter, which results in the floor-to-
ceiling height of 2.7 meters. This geometry is
equally used for the office scenario or Case-2.
The energy simulation model for this prototype
house was developed based on the typical
Korean house energy use and its energy
consumption breakdown. A typical Korean
houses annual Energy Use Intensity (EUI) is
2
204 kWh/m -yr. As shown in Figure 6 (a), the
main energy end use is for the space heating;
2
i.e., 128 kWh/m -yr or 63 %. The second largest
end use is for the domestic hot water; i.e., 29
2
kWh/m -yr or 14 %, which ties with the cooling,
lighting, and equipment end uses combined
together. The cooking energy use is then the
2
rest; i.e., 17 kWh/m -yr or 8 %. The simulation
model for this study was calibrated to this typical
Korean house energy uses.
(a)
(b)
Figure 6: Energy Consumption Breakdown for
Typical Korean House and Typical Office
The Case-2 Office simulation model has the
same geometry with the Case-1 House model.
To develop the energy simulation model of this
office building, the USAs Energy Information
Administrations (EIAs) Commercial Building
Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) report
was referenced [21]. The CBECS report
includes the summary of energy uses for several
different categories such as types of uses, sizes,
geographical locations, years built, climate
zones, and others. Considering the climate
condition (Seoul or ICN), type of use (Office),
2
and size (200 m ), a new reference was
developed based on the CBECS report. Figure 6
(b) shows the energy use breakdown of the
prototype office building developed for this study
of simulation modeling. The total EUI of the
2
office building is 294 kWh/m -yr of which the
main end use is for the space heating; i.e., 111
2
kWh/m -yr or 38%. As noted earlier, the space
heating energy was also the main end use for
the house case. This is because of the high
heating demand with more than 5,000 Heating
Degree Days (HDDs) with base temperature of
o
65 F (18.3 C) for this location or Seoul, Korea.
2
The lighting (65 kWh/m -yr or 22%) and
2
equipment (62 kWh/m -yr or 21%) follow next,
and then the rests are Service Hot Water (SHW)
2
of 21 kWh/m -yr or 7%, cooling energy of 18
2
kWh/m -yr or 6%, and fan (ventilation) energy of
2
18 kWh/m -yr or 6%.
GENERAL SIMULATION IMPUTS
For the house and office cases, basic simulation
input parameters are shown in Table 2. The
thermal performance values of the envelope
materials were obtained from the minimum
requirement of ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2007 for
Zone-4A. The State of Virginia and Washington
DC in the US are located in this climate zone.
The City of Seoul in South Korea shows similar
climate conditions to this. So, these input values requires coefficients generated from the heat
were used for the development of the simulation pump catalog data. It resembles a black box
models. with no usage of heat transfer equations.
The rated Coefficient of Performance (COP) of
Table 2: Simulation Input Parameters heating is 3.6 with heating capacity of 35 kWt.
U-Value or F- The rated cooling COP is 5.8 with the cooling
Value capacity of 17.6 kWt. There are five vertical
Geometry Type 2
Btu/sf- W/m - boreholes installed with the length of 76.2
F-hr K meters. The thermal conductivity of soil is 2.7
2
Roof Metal 0.065 0.3691 W/m-K and soil heat capacity of 2,347 kJ/m -K.
Wall Metal 0.113 0.6416 The undisturbed ground temperature value is
Door Swinging 0.700 3.9746 13.3 C.
Window U-
Metal 0.550 3.1229
Value
Window All MODELING OF SOFC MICRO-
40% 40% GENERATION IN ENERGYPLUS
SHGC (%) Windows
0.54 Fuel Cell Simulation Modeling in EnergyPlus: The
Floor Slab-On- 0.934
Btu/ft-F- EnergyPlus simulation program includes the
(House) Grade W/m-K
hr function (or simulation module) to model small
0.73 Fuel Cell (FC) generators. The FC simulation
Floor Slab-On- 1.263
Btu/ft-F- model was developed by IEA/ECBEC Annex 42
(Office) Grade W/m-K
hr for EnergyPlus. However, due to the systems
complexity and the difficulties of obtaining the
HVAC input data, the EnergyPlus FC simulation model
Type Input Values is intended to be used primarily for research
Controls
purposes at this time. Input data for specific FC
25.5 C w/ setback
Cooling models are not yet available, but will be
Thermostat of 29.5 C
developed by IEA Annex 42 in the near future.
Setpoints 20.0 C w/ setback
Heating As known, FCs for cogeneration, which
of 15.5 C produces both electricity and thermal energy,
Air Supply Cooling 18.3 C are not yet a mature system for use as building
Temperature Heating 38.0 C systems. So, the FC model can rather be used
Water Chilled to examine the comparative effects from
7.2 C
Supply Water interactions within building systems. The FC
Temperature Hot Water 82.2 C model of EnergyPlus mainly consists of three
Fan & Motor Fan 65% groups of subsystems; i.e., input systems,
Efficiencies Motor 90% output systems, and power module. The input
subsystems are air supply, fuel supply, and
water supply, which are the supplies for the
GSHP SIMULATION IMPUTS power module. The output subsystems are
The EnergyPlus program includes the water divided into two areas such as electricity
source heat pump with a ground loop heat generation and heat recovery. The electricity
exchanger in the whole-building annual energy output from the power module goes through
simulation. The water-to-water heat pump model inverter for the production of Alternate Current
was developed in 2002 by Jin & Spitler [22]. (AC). The exhaust gas from the power module
This program also uses the short time step G- passes through the gas-to-water heat exchanger
function model developed in 1999 by the before it is exhausted from the system. The fuel
Yavuzturk & Spitler [23] [24] as the ground heat cell power module is the core subsystem of the
exchanger model. The operation of this model model, which includes a number of components
was verified by comparing results to analytical such as fuel cell stack, heaters, reformers,
values [25]. The water-to-air heat pump model is combustor, and controller.
also developed and used for the modeling of
GSHP in residential and commercial buildings. SOFC Power Module: There are two FC efficiency
In this study, the water-to-water heat pump modes available in EnergyPlus such as Annex
system with vertical borehole ground heat 42 and Normalized. The Normalized option
exchanger was used. EnergyPlus provides two was used in this study as standard practice in
options for Ground Loop Heat Exchanger EnergyPlus as it specifies that the efficiency
(GLHE) modeling; i.e., Equation Fit and curves are normalized relative to a single rating
Parameter Estimation. The Equation Fit option point, in contrast to the Annex 42 option in
was used as it is a simple curve-fit model and which the efficiency curves are used for the
single size and type of the FC product. The RESULTS
Normalized mode is more suitable for a
Table 3 compares the energy consumptions
simulation study since it is mostly necessary to
between Case-3 (simple sum of Case-1 House
be able to change the capacity of the FC
and Case-2 Office) and Case-4 (Load-Sharing).
systems based on the energy demand of the
The total Energy Use Index (EUI) of Case-4 is
buildings. For the Normalized mode, the relation 2
241 kWh/m -yr, which is 4.4% lower than the
of the FC efficiency is shown below. The 2
EUI of Case-3 or 252 kWh/m -yr. In other words,
efficiency curve is quadratic and a function of
the load-sharing case achieved the total energy
the net Direct Current (DC) electric power [12].
savings of 4.4%. The energy savings were
mainly from the heating energy consumption
reduction. The main reasons of these energy
savings were due to the improved part load
ratios, improved equipment efficiencies, and
Where Pel is the net DC electric power produced
reduced heat losses.
by the power module, Pnom the nominal power,
el the electrical efficiency, and nom the nominal Table 3: Energy Use Comparison Between
electrical efficiency at the rating point Pnom. The
Case-3 and Case-4
Nstops is the number of times the FC has been
cycled on and off prior to the start. This
Case-3 Simple Sum (Case-1 + case-2) ==> 400 m 2
parameter is to incorporate the degradation
effects of cycling the FC units on and off. The kBtu/yr kBtu/ft2 -yr kWh/yr kWh/m2 -yr
value of D is the fixed number to represent the Heating 164,264 38 48,143 120.4
fractional performance degradation related to Cooling 19,234 4 5,637 14.1
each start and stop cycle. The value of L is to Lighting 56,086 13 16,438 41
characterize the fractional performance Equip 52,562 12 15,405 39
degradation related to the total amount of run Fans 17,890 4 5,243 13
time, and the value of tthreshold to represent the
Pumps 161 0 47 0.118
time period for no degradation related to the
DHW 33,859 8 9,923 25
amount of run time. This equation is a
normalized version of the Annex 42 efficiency in Total End Use 344,055 80 100,837 252
which a parametric relation between the Case-4 Load Sharing (House + Office) ==> 400 m 2
electrical efficiency and the net electrical power kBtu/yr kBtu/ft2 -yr kWh/yr kWh/m2 -yr
output are used as shown below [8]. Heating 158,521 37 46,460 116.15
Cooling 17,651 4 5,173 12.93
Lighting 56,086 13 16,438 41
Equip 52,562 12 15,405 39
SOFC Simulation Inputs: Since the Normalized
Fans 16,850 4 4,938 12
efficiency option was selected, the nominal
Pumps 161 0 47 0.118
efficiency, nom, was determined as 38% for the
SOFC power module. The nominal DC electrical DHW 27,630 6 8,098 20
power produced, Pnom, was set to 1 kW. The Total End Use 329,462 77 96,560 241
rated thermal capacity is 1.5 kW. This SOFC
module is set to run continuously at its rated In Case-5, the chiller and boiler systems were
capacity since the load-sharing buildings replaced with the GSHP system. As expected,
consistently consume more than the rated the energy savings were substantial. Figure 7
amount electricity and thermal energy. The shows the energy consumption changes and
domestic hot water consumption is 250 L/day for energy savings between Case-1 through Case-5.
house and 46 L/day for office with the city water Figure 7(a) and 7(b) depict the heating and
main temperature of 10 C. The size of hot water cooling energy consumption changes. The
storage tank is 300 L. For the exhaust gas-to- heating energy significantly dropped in Case-5
water heat exchanger, EnergyPlus includes four from Case-4, which is due to the high
options from the Annex 42 model; i.e., Fixed performance of the heat pump system using the
Effectiveness, Empirical UAeff, Fundamental geothermal heat source. Compared to that, the
UAeff, and Condensing. The Condensing cooling energy consumption reduced less than
option was used in this study. This option is 10%. Figure 7(c) shows more details for
based on the rate of condensation of water from individual areas in HVAC. Overall, as shown in
the gas stream. Figure 7(d), the total EUI has changed from
2 2
141.5 kWh/m -yr to 79.6 kWh/m -yr, which is
46% energy savings in Case-5 with GSHP
compared to Case-3, as shown in Figure 7(f).
Figure 7(e) clearly shows that the heating
energy saving was the highest as 54.5%. The
cooling energy saving was about 15% compared
to Case-3 or simple sum of Case-1 and Case-2

(e)

(a)

(f)

Figure 7: Comparison of Energy Consumption

for Heating (a), Cooling (b), HVAC Detail (c),
and HVAC Total (d); and Energy Savings
Breakdown (e) and Total Energy Savings (f)

(b) Table 4 shows and compares the details of the

energy consumption for the six scenario cases.
The energy savings from the load-sharing
technology were 2.7% compared to the base-
case or Case-3 where the two buildings (house
and office) energy uses were simply summed. A
huge energy savings were achieved from
implementing the GSHP systems in Case-5. In
Case-6, the SOFC module consumed the
natural gas of 23,053 kWh/yr to produce the
electricity of 8,760 kWh/yr. This electricity
generated by SOFC MG was subtracted from
the total energy consumption of 76,664 kWh/yr.
As a result, the FCMG implementation in Case-6
saved about 25% compared to the base-case,
which are about 12% less energy savings than
(c) Case-5 did. In this model, the SOFCs thermal
efficiency was about 22% with the electrical
efficiency of 38%, which resulted in overall
efficiency of about 60%. This is relatively low. To
improve the efficiency, it is required to decrease
the water temperature entering the FC unit from
hot water tank. In the simulation, this
temperature was unavoidably high due to the
GSHP operation. It will be necessary to develop
better configuration and better control strategies
to improve the performance and thermal
efficiency of the FCMG system.

(d)
 Table 4: Comparison of Energy Consumption for Six Simulation Scenarios

Energy Use Comparison (kWh/yr)

Energy Use Catetory Case-4
Case-1 Case-2 Case-3 Case-5 Case-6
(Load-
(House) (Office) (Case1+2) (GSHP) (FCMG)
Sharing)
Natural
25,789 22,354 48,143 46,460 2,196 23,053
Heating Gas
(Space & DHW)
Electricity - - - - 12,777 11,839

Space Cooling Electricity 1,306 4,331 5,637 5,173 4,791 4,808

Lights & Equipment 6,705 25,137 31,842 31,842 31,842 31,842

Fans & Pumps 1,501 3,789 5,290 4,985 5,145 5,121

Total 35,301 55,611 90,912 88,460 56,751 76,664

Electricity Production - - - - - (8,760)

(kWh/yr) 2,452 34,161 23,008

Energy Savings
(Case-3 Baseline)
(%) 2.7% 37.6% 25.3%

CONCLUSIONS
Buildings are the largest energy consumers.
Better utilizing the resources is one of the key
issues these days. Micro-cogeneration
technology is one of the effective and energy-
efficient alternatives to the conventional HVAC
systems. This paper presented an example of
implementing the FCMG system in a whole
building simulation using EnergyPlus program.
Total of six simulation modeling scenarios were
introduced. The main platform of this study was
load-sharing buildings between house and office,
both of which show two clearly different load
patterns. Combining these two different load
patterns can provide energy efficiency benefits
to the HVAC systems due to the improved part
load ratios. Energy savings were conceptually
realized from the load-sharing case through
simulation. GSHP system showed a great
potential for energy savings since this
technology utilizes the geothermal energy.
FCMG model was developed and showed a
substantial energy savings potential. However, it
is required to develop more complete micro-
cogeneration simulation module for the building
practitioners to be able to more easily use it for
their design projects.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors of this paper would like to
acknowledge the contributions of the Korea
Institute of Energy Research (KIER) for their
direct and indirect support on this research.
Through KIERs funding, it was possible to meet
and discuss research agendas and share ideas
at the workshops and conferences.
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