Dimitrios Rovas

Energy Modelling and Monitoring

Presenter

Associate Professor Dimitrios Rovas

 

Your Current Institutional Affiliation

The Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources, University College London (UK)

 

Biography of Presenter

Dr Dimitrios Rovas is currently an Associate Professor in Building Simulation and Optimisation at the Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources at the University College London. Dimitrios received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was research associate at the Laboratory for Numerical Analysis of the University of Paris VI, France (UPMC). He held Assistant Professor positions in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA, and in the Department of Production Engineering and Management at the Technical University of Crete, Greece. From 2013-2015 he was a member of the Systems Integration Group at the Fraunhofer Institute for Building Physics in Germany. His research interests are in the areas of building physics, smart buildings, design and simulation of building energy management systems, building simulation, building information modelling and development of middleware and data integration platforms for data access and analytical processing of sensor information. He has developed and is currently the programme leader of a new MSc programme in Smart Buildings and Digital Engineering, offered at UCL and accredited by CIBSE.

 

 

Presentation Topic

Energy Modelling and Monitoring  

 

Description of Recorded Lecture Presentation focusing on Energy Modelling:

The use of models is ubiquitous in the built environment. Yet, getting the right balance between level of modelling detail and accuracy seems a perennial challenge. This session will introduce students to the fundamentals of energy modelling. In our discussions, we consider buildings (as complex dynamical systems-of-systems) and discuss ways to model energy flows. The session will primarily focus on giving students an overview of bottom-up physics-based models.

Students will be asked to modify pre-built models to understand the range of inputs required.

 

Description of Workshop/Tutorial Presentation focusing on Energy Monitoring:

In this session the lecturer will seek to explore, through the prism of value, the landscape of innovations in energy monitoring, focusing on intelligent building operation. Drawing upon examples from Dr Rovas’ research in the fields of smart buildings, we will discuss ways new digital technologies are changing the way we design and operate buildings. We will critically view the role of energy and information models, in ensuring operational objectives are met.

 

Learning Objectives

By the end of the session, students should be able to:

  • Explain what a whole building simulation tool is and should be able to run simple energy models.
  • Understand how BIM data can be used to setup energy models.
  • Understand the value of operational data in supporting effective building operation.

 

Software Requirements

Students will be required to install and run EnergyPlus, an open-source software, available for Windows, Mac and Linux computers. A guide will be provided for students that want to learn EnergyPlus (a whole building energy modelling tool) with a simple tutorial.