Energy 30 (2005) 4171

www.elsevier.com/locate/energy

An evaluation of the appropriateness of using overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) to regulate envelope energy performance of air-conditioned buildings
F.W.H Yik , K.S.Y Wan
Department of Building Services Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hunghom, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China Received 18 March 2003

Abstract This paper inquires into whether overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) is an appropriate building envelope energy performance index for use in regulatory control. First, a historical review of the use of OTTV in American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 90 is presented, followed by a review of more recent work on its further development and application. The major deciencies of OTTV are then discussed, and simulation study results meant to highlight the impacts of such deciencies are presented. The study embraced air-conditioned oce buildings and air-conditioned high-rise residential buildings in Hong Kong. Results of this study clearly show that the OTTV calculated with the use of pre-calculated coecients may not truly reect the thermal performance of a building envelope. Therefore, a second thought should be given to the use of OTTV in building energy codes. # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction In the early 1970s, the oil crisis awakened industrialised countries to the fact that economic development can be highly vulnerable to instabilities in imports of energy resources. In addition to reducing reliance on imported fuels, environmental protection and sustainable development are nowadays the major impetus of energy conservation initiatives. Since buildings are a dominant energy consumer in modern cities, energy use in buildings has become a policy issue in many regimes worldwide [13].

Corresponding author. Tel.: +852-2766-5841; fax: +852-2774-6146. E-mail address: bewhyik@polyu.edu.hk (F.W.H. Yik).

0360-5442/$ - see front matter # 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.energy.2004.03.001

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The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) originated in 1975 the use of overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) as a thermal performance index for the envelope of air-conditioned buildings [4]. Thereafter, many countries included assessment of OTTV in their building energy codes [511]. OTTV was considered a better performance index than thermal transmittance (U-value) because it takes into account the impact of direct sun on the envelope of mechanically cooled buildings [12]. With all other things being equal, lowering the OTTV of a building should lead to less envelope heat gain and thus less cooling energy use. Despite that ASHRAE has ceased using OTTV in its Standard 90 [13] since 1989, use of OTTV in building energy codes continues outside the US, including those launched in the 1990s [11,14]. Much eort has also been made to enhance the method for OTTV calculation in Asia, including in Singapore and Hong Kong. The divergence between the US and the Asian countries in the use of OTTV warrants a more thorough evaluation of the appropriateness of using OTTV to regulate energy performance of building envelopes. 2. The introduction and abandonment of OTTV in ASHRAE Standard 90 Using OTTV to quantify the energy performance of envelopes of air-conditioned buildings was rst introduced by ASHRAE in Standard 90-75 [4], which was revised later into Standard 90A-1980 [15]. In the latter, OTTV was explicitly dened as the maximum thermal transfer permissible into the building through its walls or roof, due to solar heat gain and outdoorindoor temperature dierence, to be determined using Eqs. (1) and (2) below. The compliance criterion for the OTTV of roofs was a constant value of 26.8 W/m2, but that for OTTV of walls would vary with the latitude of the building site. OTTVw OTTVR Uw Aw TDEQ Af SF SC Uf Af DT Aw Af UR AR TDEQ 434:7 AS SC US AS DT AR AS (1)

(2)

where OTTVw is OTTV of a wall, W/m2; OTTVR is OTTV of a roof ( 26.8), W/m2; Uw, Uf, UR and US are thermal transmittance of the opaque part of a wall, a fenestration, the opaque v part of a roof and a skylight, respectively, W/m2 C; Aw, Af, AR and AS are area of the opaque part of a wall, a fenestration, the opaque part of a roof and a skylight, respectively, m2; TDEQ v is equivalent temperature dierence for the opaque part of a wall or a roof, C; SC is shading 2 coecient of a fenestration or a skylight; SF is solar factor, W/m ; DT is temperature dierence v between exterior and interior design conditions, C. As Eqs. (1) and (2) show, OTTV represents the total of three major components of envelope heat gain: conduction through opaque parts of walls and roofs; solar transmission through windows and skylights; and heat transfer through windows and skylights due to outdoorindoor temperature dierence. This resembles how envelope heat gains are determined in the CLTD/ CLF design cooling load calculation method rst introduced in 1977 by ASHRAE [16]. In the review for updating Standard 90A-80, the exterior envelope criteria were considered too simplistic to properly account for the interactions of the envelope with the complex energy

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43

ow within commercial buildings [17]. One major criticism was about the use of the equivalent temperature dierence (TDEQ) in the OTTV equation to account for the thermal storage eects of envelope elements [18]. The impact of the building envelope on cooling energy use is dependent on climate, building operation schedule, and three characteristics of the perimeter wall: the orientation, thickness and position of the insulation relative to the mass [19]. Furthermore, the contribution of conduction to the cooling energy is not as consistent as other heat gains, such as solar and lighting, and it can be very small and can be either positive or negative. Conduction loss can occur during some of the cooling hours for some buildings located at high latitudes [17]. The envelope performance requirements were also considered restrictive, as the envelope and the HVAC systems were treated independently, and the few number of factors considered limited design exibility [2024]. The use of OTTV was nally abandoned since ASHRAE launched Standard 90.1-1989 Energy Ecient Design of New Buildings Except New Low-rise Residential Buildings [13]. Instead, the prescriptive criteria put limits to the percentage of fenestration relative to the gross external wall area; the thermal transmittance (U-value) of envelope elements and fabric elements separating conditioned and unconditioned spaces; and the thermal resistances of slabs-on-grade and walls below grade. The permissible limits were dependent on the local weather conditions; shading coecient of fenestration; characteristics of shading device; and heat capacitance of wall and position of insulation [13,24,25]. Alternative compliance paths had also been introduced in Standard 90.1, which included performance-based criteria that were based on the cumulative heating and cooling energy ux to allow trade-os among dierent envelope assemblies, and the Energy Cost Budget approach, which oered even greater exibility for meeting the Standard requirements. In 1992, the US Energy Policy and Conservation Act required every state in the US to certify, before October 1994, its energy codes would meet or exceed the requirements of the ASHRAE Standard 90.11989 [3,26,27]. Ten years later, a new version of ASHRAE Standard 90.1-1999 [28] was issued. Since then, Standard 90.1 will be re-issued on regular three-year cycles, for incorporating changes resulting from continuous maintenance proposals from the public. The latest version of Standard 90.1 has been published in 2001 [29].

3. Use of OTTV for regulating building energy performance in Asian countries Among Asian countries, Singapore was the rst to have regulatory control over the OTTV of external walls of air-conditioned buildings (since 1979). Details of the control were stipulated in a Singaporean Standard [5,30]. Four years later, the Handbook was revised [5], which included the introduction of a new standard on OTTV for roofs with skylights and a new method for determining the coecients in the OTTV equation to account for the eects of external shading devices at exterior walls. Turiel et al. [31,32] reviewed the OTTV standard and showed that the term for solar gain through windows in the OTTV formulation understated, but the conduction terms for walls and windows exaggerated the rates of heat transfer through the respective paths. They recommended the OTTV formulation be revised into a single term equation, accounting only for the solar heat gain.

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Later, Chou and Lee [33,34] reviewed both the OTTV formulation in the Standard as well as that proposed by Turiel et al. In their attempt to derive an OTTV equation for Singaporean buildings, they dened OTTV as the annual heat gain of the air-conditioned spaces in a building from the envelope during both air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned periods, averaged over the total air-conditioned hours throughout the year and normalised by the envelope area enclosing such spaces, as Eq. (3) depicts. This was based on the consideration that the heat gain would ultimately contribute to the cooling load on air-conditioning systems [35]. OTTV Total heat gain through building envelope W=m2 Total air-conditioned hours Envelope area (3)

Note that Eq. (3) is for evaluation of OTTV based on predicted heat gains from detailed computer simulations. The OTTV predictions can then be used in regression analyses or other methods to evaluate the coecients (TDEQ, SF and DT) in an OTTV equation similar to Eqs. (1) and (2) for practical applications. However, the meanings of OTTV and the coecients TDEQ, SF and DT are now dierent from those dened originally in ASHRAE Standard 90-75. Chou and Lees OTTV denition has become widely accepted, but still not universal. They did nd from their results that the Standard formulation required revision, but also pointed out that the equation proposed by Turiel et al. tended to overemphasise the eects of measures for reducing solar heat gains. In July 2000, the envelope and roof thermal transfer values (ETTV and RTTV) were introduced to replace the respective OTTVs in the earlier version of the Singaporean Standard [36]. The new ETTV and RTTV formulae are basically modied versions of the original OTTV formulation based on more rigorous computer simulations but are assigned with new names to differentiate them from the original OTTV equations. Similar to Singapore, Malaysia also adopted in 1987 OTTV as a building envelope thermal performance index in its energy standard for new commercial buildings. Having found that the solar absorptivity of external wall surfaces would aect the chiller load by 89%, wall surface absorptivity was included as a multiplicative factor in the term for heat conduction through opaque walls and roofs in the OTTV equation [6,7]. In 1980s and early 1990s, some other Asian countries, including the Philippines [8], Thailand [9,10] and Indonesia [11], have also implemented OTTV control over the energy performance of new buildings. The Hong Kong Government started to consider building energy conservation in the late 1980s and commissioned a consultant to develop a method of control over the OTTV of commercial and hotel buildings. The consultants report [37] emphasised that the OTTV developed was not meant to be a measure of the maximum rate of heat transfer across the building envelope nor an indication of the size required of the air-conditioning plant. Despite the resemblance between the OTTV equations and those in ASHRAE Standard 90-75, they were meant to relate cooling energy use to envelope characteristics (with all other inuential factors xed). The study was based on assumed cooling periods in the year, which embraced the daylight hours for 5.5 days per week from April to October. Finding that the conduction heat gain through fenestration areas had insignicant eects, the proposed OTTV equations comprised only two terms that account for the building cooling energy use contributed by conduction heat gain through opaque parts of walls and roofs, and by solar gain through fenestrations. The recommended maximum OTTV for commercial buildings was: for walls, 16 W/m2 for no

Table 1 Summary of assumptions made by researchers in the development of OTTV equation for commercial buildings in Hong Kong JRP [24] Cooling energy use Instantaneous envelope heat gain Space cooling load Net positive envelope heat gain Chilled water load (BLAST) Annual energy consumption (or chilled water load) (TRACE 600) Annual envelop heat gain (TRACE 600) No information Lam et al.[53-55] Chan [59] Chow & Yu [61, 62]

Shillinglaw & Chen [50]

Basis for quantication of OTTV

Mean energy-gain

Duration of analysis March November period in the year based on 12 h days (0700 1800)

Total daylight hours from April to October

Heat gain: 8760, 3650, 5880, 2450, 4416 & 1840 h

For all hours with a net positive envelope heat gain, which varied from the building to another

1920 h

Commercial buildings: 2190 h

Space cooling load: 5880, 2450, 4416 & 1840 h A 40-storey building with square oor layout, 1225 m2 per oor A 40-storey building with square oor layout, 1296 m2 per oor A single compartment of a volume ranging from 4,000 to 40,000 m3

F.W.H. Yik, K.S.Y. Wan / Energy 30 (2005) 4171

Building layout

Based on several existing buildings

Indoor/ Outdoor temperature

Indoor: 25.2 C

Hotel: 2675 h A model building with square oor layout, 1400 m2 per oor, 121 m2 wall area with window to wall ratio 0.3 on each of the four principal orientations (N, E, S & W) Indoor: Commercial v building: 25.5 C for v summer, 20.5 C for v winter; Hotel: 22.5 C v for summer, 20.5 C for winter Indoor: 25.5 C v for cooling, 21 C for heating
v

Indoor: 25.5 C for v cooling, 22 C for heating

Indoor: 25 C, v v 23 C, 21 C

(continued on next page)

45

Table 1 (continued ) 46 JRP [24]

v

Shillinglaw & Chen [50] Outdoor: 33 C v for summer, 7 C for winter Commercial buildings: 08:00 to 19:00 08:00 to 18:00 08:00 to 13:00 08:00 to 13:00 O O 08:00 to 18:00 08:00 to 13:00 O Total AC hours: 2780 Lighting, 20 W/m2 Equipment, 5 W/m2 Occupancy density, 7 m2/person Outside air, 7l/s/person No internal load No ventilation load Total AC hours: 2780
v

Lam et al.[53-55]

Chan [59]

Chow & Yu [61, 62]

Outdoor: 28.1 C, being the mean value for 1500 h each year from 1968 to 1977 08:00 to 18:00 09:00 to 13:00 O

Operating hours Weekday Saturday Sunday or Public Holiday

Internal loads

Total AC hours: 2800 Hotel: 24 hours Lighting, 35 W/m2 Equipment, 35 W/m2 Occupancy density, 14.28 m2/person Outside air, 9,4l/s/person Lighting, 20 W/m2 Equipment, 15 W/m2 Occupancy density, 3.7 m2/person Outside air, 3.3l/s/person Inltration, 0.6 ach VAV reheat system

Air-side AC system

Fan coil system

Method of heat gain or cooling load predication DOE-2

DOE-2.1D

Transfer Function Method

VAV system with 40% minimum turn down ratio DOE-2

BLAST

F.W.H. Yik, K.S.Y. Wan / Energy 30 (2005) 4171

TRACE 600

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47

provisions for daylight and 23 W/m2 for including provisions for daylight; and for roofs, 11 W/ m2. For hotel buildings, the maximum OTTV was 30 W/m2 for walls and 17 W/m2 for roofs. The regulatory control over the OTTV of commercial and hotel buildings that has been enforced in Hong Kong since July 1995 is based largely on the consultancy study. The method and data for OTTV calculation, and the compliance requirements, are stipulated in a Code of Practice [14], but the control gures (35 W/m2 for the tower block and 80 W/m2 for the podium portion of a building) were less stringent. These gures have been tightened in 2000, to 30 and 70 W/m2, respectively [38]. Similar to ASHRAE Standard 90-75 and 90A-80, the building energy eciency regulation of Hong Kong has been criticised to be limited in scope and restrictive, as it only controls the building envelope design and does not consider other aspects of building design, such as optimisation of and trade-os between the performance of the building and the services system designs [39,40]. Local building professionals commented that the use of the OTTV method is limiting freedom in architectural design and restricting innovations [41].

4. Research studies into OTTV in Hong Kong Since the Hong Kong Government started considering regulating energy performance of building envelope designs, many local researchers studied into the OTTV of commercial buildings in Hong Kong. Most studies made reference to the ASHRAE and the Singaporean Standards but re-evaluated the coecients in the OTTV equations on the basis of local weather conditions [4244]. Table 1 summaries the key assumptions made by various local researchers in their studies, including the basis upon which OTTV was quantied and the characteristics of the model buildings they used. The latter includes the assumed building dimensions, the operating hours of the air-conditioning system, the indoor temperature set point and the internal loads. The simulation tools used are also shown in the table. Shillinglaw and Chen [42] developed an OTTV calculation method and a grading system for OTTV assessment. Their equation embraced the same three major envelope heat gain terms as in ASHRAEs. The derivation, however, was based on mean energy gain through the envelope, under the average weather condition over a 12-hour daily time frame (07:0018:00) from March to November. The choice of the diurnal and seasonal time frames is important as they have signicant impacts on the values of the coecients in the OTTV equation [44]. Lam et al. [4547] studied the use of two approaches to develop OTTV equations for Hong Kong. In the rst, OTTV was evaluated based on heat gains and the results were used to determine TDEQ for opaque walls and roofs. In the second, the OTTV actually represented the annual total cooling load due to the three heat gain components. The simulation program DoE2 [48] was used to predict the heat gains and the resultant cooling loads. The cooling periods studied include a 10-hour day and a 24-hour day, each for a 5.5-day week over a 9-month period (March to November). They recommended that OTTV calculation should be based on heat gains while TDEQ, DT and SF should be evaluated based on xed air-conditioning schedules for avoiding the need for dierent sets of TDEQ, DT and SF data [47]. Chow and Chan [4952] also used DoE-2 to predict heat gains but took a dierent approach to establish OTTV equations. They argued that due to the weather changes among the four

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seasons in Hong Kong, it would be inappropriate to base the calculation of OTTV on the total heat gain throughout the year. Instead of from outdoor into indoor, heat transmission through the envelope may reverse in direction during certain air-conditioned hours in the year. They proposed to determine the total envelope heat gain by summing algebraically the hourly heat gains from all envelope elements over just those hours where the total envelope heat gain in the hour remained positive. OTTV was then determined by averaging the total envelope heat gain over such hours, and the OTTVs determined for a range of building models were used in a regression analysis to yield TDEQ, SF, and DT as coecients in the OTTV equations. Chow and Yu [53,54] also developed OTTV equations based on the heat gain, chilled water load and annual energy consumption, and considered the method proposed by Chow and Chan [50] the most appropriate. Their study was based on a rectangular shape atrium hall and covv ered a range of set point indoor temperatures, including 25, 23 and 21 C. They opined that the use of OTTV alone would not ensure energy ecient and cost eective building designs; the air leakage, the selection of heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems and equipment, building energy management and other energy saving options, such as daylighting and solar heating, should also be considered. Hui [40] also made similar comments and proposed to apply prescriptive requirements to building design and components, and system performance requirements to building services systems in assessing their energy performance. He also developed a general methodology for developing OTTV equation that incorporates building energy simulation and multiple regression techniques, but suggested to evaluate the solar factor separately by means of ASHRAEs or other methods. Recently, the Hong Kong Government has developed a performance-based energy code [55] intended to provide an alternative compliance route to the ve existing prescriptive codes; one on OTTV and four on building services installations. However, compliance with the OTTV requirement remained a basic requirement for which no trade-os of performance with services systems would be allowed.

5. Adequacy of OTTV as an envelope energy performance index Several modications to the original denition of OTTV (which was based on peak heat gains) have been proposed, such as basing it on annual heat gains, annual cooling loads or annual air-conditioning energy use, all with the objective to obtain a parameter that can reect the impact of envelope characteristics on the energy use for air-conditioning. For buildings in Hong Kong or places with similar climate, heat transmission through walls and windows can take place in opposite directions at dierent times, which makes it dicult to derive a consistent envelope energy performance index. In parts of buildings where there are high internal loads or solar gains, envelope conduction loss can help reduce cooling load on the air-conditioning system, and thus lower air-conditioning energy use. For intermittently air-conditioned buildings, envelope heat loss may also help reduce the pull-down load during the start-up period, particularly after a prolonged shut-down period (e.g. a weekend). Therefore, a well insulated envelope with low OTTV may not necessarily mean reduced energy use. To circumvent this

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49

problem, proposals have been made to focus only on several hotter months in the year or to ignore periods with net heat losses. Besides the above problem, all the methods have more fundamental drawbacks due to the assumptions made implicitly, which include: 1. The heat gains from each wall, roof, window or skylight could be determined independently from pre-calculated values of equivalent temperature dierence (TDEQ) and solar factor (SF). 2. The same value of TDEQ would apply to walls or roofs of the same construction and facing the same direction, and likewise the same value of SF would apply to windows or skylights at the same orientation, irrespective of the room dimensions and congurations. 3. The OTTV of the entire envelope could be determined from the OTTVs of dierent walls, windows, roofs and skylights in the envelope, as their area-weighted average. 4. The OTTV would reect the impact of the envelope on the energy use for air-conditioning the building. Assumption 4 above is obviously linked to the goal of OTTV controls over buildings. Assumptions 1 to 3 serve to simplify the calculation method such that OTTV for buildings can be evaluated based on a limited set of pre-calculated TDEQ and SF data. These assumptions resemble those made for simplifying the design cooling load calculation methods for buildings. In such methods, the heat gains from dierent envelope components and the resultant cooling load are determined using pre-calculated values for the inuential parameters, such as the wall and roof conduction transfer function coecients and the room weighting factors for use with the transfer function method [16,56,57]. Similar applies to the periodic wall and roof conduction time series and the periodic room weighting factors in the newly introduced radiant time series (RTS) design cooling load calculation method [56], and the cooling load temperature dierence (CLTD) and solar cooling load (SCL) in the simplied method [58] that the RTS method replaced. However, it has been well recognised that signicant discrepancies between predictions and measurements could arise due to the use of pre-calculated room weighting factors for cooling load estimation. Eorts had been made to provide weighting factors [5961] for a range of zone type groups, and conduction transfer function coecients for wall and roof groups [62], such that cooling load estimation may still be based on pre-calculated parameters without signicant loss in accuracy, provided the right set of parameters is selected for the calculation. The results of the ASHRAE Research Project 472 [61] showed that when the zone geometry (ratio of room width to depth), zone height, type of internal partitions or the number of external walls enclosing an air-conditioned zone was changed, the weighting factors for a dierent zone group may need to be selected, which highlights the signicance of these parameters on the thermal response of an air-conditioned zone. For improving prediction accuracy, procedures for calculating custom weighting factors have been incorporated into the building energy simulation program DoE-2 [63]. The more recently conducted study for verication of the prediction accuracy of the newly introduced RTS method [64,65] included parametric studies that embraced variations in the zone geometry and glazed portions of external walls. However, consistent with the aim of the study, the periodic room weighting factors used in the simulation were generated specically for

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each modelled zone. The results, therefore, did not unveil the impact of these factors on the predicted cooling load had just one single set of weighting factors been used. Nonetheless, the message, as re-iterated by McQuiston et al. [57], is clear: the zone geometry and construction characteristics, including those of the walls, roofs or ceilings, oors and internal masses are inuential, whilst use of data categorised by zone types could lead to less than satisfactory results. Therefore, McQuiston et al. advised users of the RTS method to generate custom radiant time factors for the specic zone in question using a computer program that implements the detailed heat balance model. It is worth noting that the ASHRAE Research Project 472 [5961] for enhancing the design cooling load calculation methods in the ASHRAE Handbook [5962] were conducted in the late 1980s, which coincided with the time of upgrading Standard 90A-80 to Standard 90.1-1989. Therefore, it is reasonable to believe that these research studies had inuenced, to certain extent, the decision of abandoning the use of OTTV in Standard 90.1.

6. Evaluation of the inuence of zone arrangement on the heat gain through the building envelope of an oce building The need to take detailed account of the zone geometry and characteristics of envelope components, partitions and internal heat sources applies to both building cooling load estimation and OTTV calculation. Assumptions 1 to 3 above are, strictly speaking, invalid. The simulation studies described below were meant to unveil the signicance of the impacts of envelope construction and room conguration on envelope heat gains, which are the basis of OTTV calculation. 6.1. Basis of the case studies A 40-storey oce building model was devised to provide a basis for the study. The base-case used as the reference for comparison with other cases had the area on each oor divided into four perimeter zones of equal areas (Zones 14) and an interior zone (Zone 5), as shown in Fig. 1. The glazed area accounted for 40% of the exterior surface of the external wall in each perimeter zone (i.e. the window-to-wall area ratio (WWR) was 0.4). Except the window size and glazing property, the building models for all the cases studied had the same characteristics, including the building size and shape; wall and roof construction; the lighting, equipment and occupant loads and their patterns of variations; and the air-conditioning schedule, as summarised in Tables 24. The internal load characteristics are same as the reference conditions for assessing new oce buildings under the Hong Kong Building Environmental Assessment Method (HK-BEAM), which is a voluntary scheme that has been implemented since 1996 [66]. For all the cases studied, the indoor temperature set point for all air-conditioned areas was v taken as 24 C, and no provision of reheat was assumed. Calculation of heat gains for OTTV evaluation followed the method due to Chou and Lee [33,34], i.e. by summing algebraically over all hours in the year the heat gains from and the heat losses to individual envelope elements during both the air-conditioned and unconditioned hours, and dividing the sum by the total number of air-conditioned hours in the year and the surface

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51

Fig. 1. Floor layout of the building model (Base-case).

Table 2 Key construction characteristics of the building model Building type No. of storeys Floor area Oce building 40 storeys (above ground) Floor to oor height 36 m 36 m, square in shape Air-conditioned area Non-air-conditioned area North (N), East (E), South (S) and West (W) Materials Granite panel Normal cavity Concrete Plaster Glass Shading coecient Window-to-wall area ratio Sand/screed Insulation Asphalt Screed Concrete 3.2 m 1058 m2 225 m2

Orientation Opaque wall construction

Fenestration

Thickness (mm) 25 50 100 20 6

Roof construction

25 37 30 25 100

Conductivity (W/m K) 2.90 6.54 2.16 0.38 1.05 0.4 0.4 0.72 0.034 1.15 0.72 2.16

Specic heat capacity (J/kg K) 900.0 653.0 1000.0 750.0

840.0 837.0 837.0 840.0 653.0

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Table 3 Occupation characteristics of the building model Indoor design conditions Normal occupied and air-conditioned hours Occupancy density Ventilation rates Cooling indoor dry-bulb temperature Indoor relative humidity Weekdays Saturdays Sundays and public holidays Maximum density Daily patterns When ventilation system is ON When ventilation system is OFF Daily patterns When ventilation system is ON When ventilation system is OFF Maximum intensity Daily patterns Maximum intensity 24 C 54% 8:0019:00 8:0013:00 Not occupied 9 m2 per person Table 4 10l/s per person 0l/s Table 4 0.1 air change/h 0.5 air change/h 25 W/m2 Table 4 20 W/m2 (assumed constant load)
v

Inltration rates Lighting load Appliances load

Table 4 Occupancy density and lighting load proles (in fractions of maximum density), and ventilation system operating schedule Day in the Week Weekday Hours 17 78 89 913 1314 1417 1718 1819 1920 2021 2124 17 78 89 913 1317 1718 1824 19 917 1724 Occupancy 0.0 0.05 0.4 0.95 0.45 0.95 0.5 0.25 0.1 0.05 0.0 0.0 0.05 0.3 0.6 0.1 0.05 0.0 0.0 0.05 0.0 Lighting (perimeter) 0.05 0.1 0.5 0.9 0.8 0.9 0.8 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.05 0.05 0.1 0.5 0.75 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.05 0.1 0.05 Lighting (interior) 0.05 0.1 0.5 1.0 0.9 1.0 0.8 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.05 0.05 0.1 0.5 0.8 0.2 0.1 0.05 0.05 0.1 0.05 Ventilation O O On On On On On On O O O O O On On O O O O O O

Saturdays

Sundays and public holidays

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area of the corresponding element, as depicted by Eq. (3). The heat gain from a fenestration was the algebraic sum of the transmitted solar radiation, the part of the absorbed solar energy that owed toward the indoor space and the conduction heat ow due to outdoor/indoor temperature dierence. The heat gains were predicted by using a detailed building heat transfer simulation program HTB2 [67] under the assumption that the air-conditioning system would be operating during the occupied periods (Table 3), keeping the indoor temperatures steadily at the set point level v (24 C). It was assumed that no air-conditioning would be provided during the unoccupied periods. In such periods, the indoor temperatures would oat according to heat balance in the zones. The annual heat gains from the opaque and fenestration parts of individual external walls, normalised by the air-conditioned hour and the respective component surface areas, are referred to here as the heat gain intensities (W/m2). Such heat gain intensities would have been the basis for evaluation of the OTTV equation coecients TDEQ, SF and DT in deriving OTTV equations for buildings in a specic region. For ease of reference, the heat gain intensities from the surface of the opaque part of a wall and a fenestration in the same wall in a particular zone I that faced a specic direction D in the base-case are denoted respectively by IW,I,D,B and IG,I,D,B. The same under a specic case studied are denoted respectively by IW,I,D,C and IG,I,D,C. The percentage dierence between the corresponding heat gain intensities (DIW,I,D and DIG,I,D) was calculated as shown below, to show the impacts of changing the building characteristics of the base-case to those of the specic case being considered. DIW;I;D DIG;I;D IW;I;D;C IW;I;D;B 100% IW;I;D;B IG;I;D;C IG;I;D;B 100% IG;I;D;B (4) (5)

The OTTVs of the entire building under the base-case (OTTVB) and under the specic case (OTTVC) were determined according to Eqs. (6) and (7). P AW;I;D;B IW;I;D;B AG;I;D;B IG;I;D;B P (6) OTTVB AW;I;D;B AG;I;D;B P AW;I;D;C IW;I;D;C AG;I;D;C IG;I;D;C P OTTVC (7) AW;I;D;C AG;I;D;C where AW,I,D,B is area of the opaque part of the external wall in zone I facing direction D in the base-case, m2; AG,I,D,B is area of the fenestration part of the external wall in zone I facing direction D in the base-case, m2; AW,I,D,C is area of the opaque part of the external wall in zone I facing direction D in a specic case, m2; AG,I,D,C is area of the fenestration part of the external wall in zone I facing direction D in a specic case, m2. However, if IW,I,D,B and IG,I,D,B were taken as the heat gain intensities that would apply to the specic case, similar to applying an OTTV equation with pre-determined coecients to

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Table 5 Heat gain intensities of envelope elements in the base-case building model and the OTTV of the building Zone (I) Exposure (D) Topmost oor Opaque wall IW,I,D,B (W/m2) 1 2 3 4 OTTVB (W/m2) N E S W 4.01 4.05 1.89 1.43 6.65 Fenestration IG,I,D,B (W/m2) 12.80 15.16 28.82 40.96 Typical oor Opaque wall IW,I,D,B (W/m2) 4.63 4.69 3.35 0.53 Fenestration IG,I,D,B (W/m2) 11.22 13.50 25.07 36.04

dierent buildings, the OTTV for the specic case (OTTVC,B) would have been calculated as: P AW;I;D;C IW;I;D;B AG;I;D;C IG;I;D;B P OTTVC;B (8) AW;I;D;C AG;I;D;C The percentage error in the OTTV so calculated (DOTTV) would, therefore, be: DOTTV OTTVC;B OTTVC 100% OTTVC (9)

For the base-case, the OTTV of the entire building (OTTVB) was found to be 6.65 W/m2. If the calculation method and data given in the Code of Practice [14] was used instead, the OTTV would be 27.4 W/m2. The large dierence between these two gures was due to the very dierent approaches adopted for evaluating OTTV. The calculation results for the heat gain intensities IW,I,D,B and IG,I,D,B for the four external walls of the building model are summarised in Table 5. The results show that for the topmost oor, the opaque part of the walls facing north, east and south would incur a heat loss from indoor to outdoor over the year (balance of gains and losses), but that facing west would lead to a small heat gain. On a typical oor, the opaque part of all the walls would incur a heat loss over the year. Due to the large positive solar gain, which dominated the fenestration heat gain, all windows would lead to a positive heat gain. 6.2. Eects of varying area of fenestrations in external walls For examining the impacts of varying the proportion of fenestration areas in external walls on the heat gain from the opaque part of the walls, the window-to-wall area ratio (WWR) of the building model was reduced from 0.4 (base-case) down to 0.3 and 0.2, and enlarged up to 0.5 and 0.6, but the construction of the wall and properties of the glazing remained unchanged. The simulation results for the two extreme cases (WWR 0:2 and 0.6) are summarised in Table 6, which show that increasing the fenestration area will lead to signicantly increased total envelope heat gain, and vice versa, as reected by the calculated OTTVs (2.8810.3 W/m2). For those walls that would incur a heat loss through the opaque part over the year, the intensity (per unit area value) of this heat loss would increase with the fenestration area (thus

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Table 6 Percentage changes in heat gain intensities of envelope elements in the building model and the OTTV of the building Zone (I) Exposure (D) Topmost oor Opaque wall DIW,I,D (%) (a) Window-to-wall 1 2 3 4 OTTVC (W/m2) OTTVC,B (W/m2) DOTTV (b) Window-to-wall 1 2 3 4 OTTVC (W/m2) OTTVC,B (W/m2) DOTTV area ratio (WWR) enlarged to 0.6 N 10.1 E 11.3 S 37.2 W 59.0 10.03 11.61 15.8% area ratio (WWR) reduced to 0.2 N 12.3 E 13.7 S2 44.3 W 68.8 2.88 1.69 41.4% Fenestration DIG,I,D (%) 10.9 10.5 8.1 6.5 Typical oor Opaque wall DIW,I,D (%) 8.1 9.3 24.7 201.7 Fenestration DIG,I,D (%) 11.7 11.4 10.7 9.0

12.8 12.2 9.4 7.4

10.4 11.8 30.6 244.1

14.2 13.7 12.8 10.6

DIW,I,D is positive) but, at the same time the heat gain intensity from the fenestration would drop (thus DIG,I,D is negative). This is because the transmitted solar intensity remained the same but the increased total room solar gain raised the temperatures of the surfaces enclosing the room, leading to a rise in heat loss through the glazing. The results also show that using the heat gain intensities for the base-case to estimate the OTTVs for the other cases would lead to very signicant errors, with DOTTV ranging from 41% to +16%, as shown in Fig. 2.

6.3. Eects of redening the zoning A further case study was performed to show the impacts of zoning on the envelope heat gains of the air-conditioned spaces. For this case study, the oor layout was modied from that shown in Fig. 1 to as shown in Fig. 3, where there are 10 perimeter zones and one interior zone. All the envelope and internal load characteristics were same as those in the base-case. Table 7 summarises the predicted heat gains from the envelope elements and the OTTV for the entire building. As the sizes of Zones 1, 3, 6 and 9 were not signicantly smaller than the respective N, E, S and W zones before zoning was applied, the eects were just marginal. The large percentage change in the heat gain intensity from the south wall in Zone 9 was due to the small value of the intensity in the base-case (Table 5).

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Fig. 2. Percentage errors in the calculated OTTV.

For small perimeter rooms, signicant changes in the heat gain intensities can be observed even if those rooms were still enclosed by only one external wall (e.g. Zone 5). This is due to the largely increased partition wall surface area that shares the transmitted diuse solar radiation and the long wave radiation re-emitted by the oor surface after it absorbed the transmitted direct solar radiation (a method commonly used to treat transmitted solar energy in room heat transfer modelling [57]). Consequently, the temperatures of the enclosing surfaces are lower, which reduces the conduction heat loss through both the opaque and glazed parts of the external wall. The latter increased the heat gain intensity from the window. For the corner zones (Zones 2, 4, 7 and 10, Fig. 3), the layout modication incurred very signicant changes to the heat gain intensities (Table 7), especially the intensities of conduction gain from the opaque parts of the external walls. The eect can be an increase (e.g. the north wall in Zone 10) or a reduction (e.g. the west wall in Zone 10 and the north and east walls in

Fig. 3. Modied oor layout of the building model.

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57

Zone 2) in heat loss intensity, depending on whether there is a general rise or drop in the enclosure surface temperatures. If the heat gain intensities were unaected by the layout change, the OTTV for this building should equal that of the base-case building, as the envelope characteristics of the two were identical. However, the calculation results show that using the heat gain intensities predicted for the base-case for estimating the OTTV of this building led to an error (DOTTV) of 9%.

6.4. Eects of varying WWR and SC on OTTV and annual cooling load Table 8 shows the calculated OTTVs for the base-case building model and ve other building models that dier from the base-case model only in the window-to-wall area ratio (WWR) and/or the shading coecient of glazing (SC) (denoted as Case I to V). The tabulated data include the OTTVs of these building models, determined according to the method and data given in the Code of Practice [14], and the predicted annual space and total cooling loads for these building models. The total cooling load exceeds the space cooling load because it includes the cooling load for treating ventilation air and those loads incurred by fan and pump heat gains. Fig. 4 shows the correlation between the OTTV and the annual cooling loads of these building models.

Table 7 Percentage changes in heat gain intensities of envelope elements in the building model and the OTTV of the building with the modied oor layout (Fig. 3) Zone (I) Exposure (D) Topmost oor Opaque wall DIW,I,D (%) 1 2 2 3 4 4 5 6 7 7 8 9 10 10 OTTVC (W/m2) OTTVC,B (W/m2) DOTTV N N E E E S S S S W W W W N 11.85 38.99 43.97 15.62 18.74 105.50 92.71 46.64 40.58 116.67 63.29 41.99 190.49 10.14 7.25 6.65 9.02% Fenestration DIG,I,D (%) 9.37 30.64 30.57 11.45 12.34 17.86 17.87 8.58 6.56 10.07 5.99 3.73 16.57 6.74 Typical oor Opaque wall DIW,I,D (%) 4.76 31.94 36.59 1.32 3.51 66.32 47.66 9.51 14.13 354.96 39.17 42.90 625.15 7.13 Fenestration DIG,I,D (%) 5.30 33.01 33.10 0.56 2.40 22.91 19.04 4.19 4.51 13.06 2.01 1.49 23.12 9.16

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Table 8 Predicted OTTV and annual cooling load from the original to the modied construction (a) Shading coecient of fenestration SC 0:4 Case I Window-to-wall area ratio (WWR) OTTV based on Code of Practice [10] OTTV based on heat gain predictions Predicted space cooling load Predicted annual total cooling loadb
a b

(b) Shading coecient of fenestration SC 0:7 Case II 0.6 38.47 40.4% 10.03 50.8% 5.78 3.4% 10.33 1.4% Case III 0.2 25.41 7.3% 10.75 61.7% 5.77 3.2% 10.25 0.7% Case IV 0.4 45.51 66.0% 21.06 216.7% 6.31 12.9% 10.62 4.3% Case V 0.6 65.62 139.4% 29.96 350.5% 6.78 21.3% 10.95 7.6%

Base-case 0.4 27.41 6.65 5.59 10.18

0.2 (W/m2) % Di.a (W/m2) % Di.a (GW h) % Di.a (GW h) % Di.a 16.36 40.3% 2.88 56.7% 5.37 4.0% 10.02 1.6%

With reference to the corresponding value in the base-case. Including the space load, fresh air load and equipment heat gains.

This set of results shows that OTTV is highly sensitive to changes in WWR and SC. Simply reducing or enlarging the window area will only lead to moderate changes in the annual space cooling load and the annual total cooling load, which are much less signicant than changing the glass property (SC). This is because enlarging the window area will increase the solar gain but this will be compensated by the increase in conduction heat loss through the glazing. On the other hand, increasing the shading coecient without changing the glazed area will increase the solar gain but the heat loss through the glazing will be virtually unaected. Fig. 4 shows that the annual cooling loads are linearly, but just moderately, related to OTTV, primarily because the cooling load due to envelope heat gains is relatively small compared to other more dominant loads, such as lighting, equipment and ventilation loads.

Fig. 4. Correlation of annual space cooling load (ASCL) and annual total cooling load (ATCL) with OTTV.

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7. Heat gain through the building envelope of a high-rise air-conditioned residential building So far, the regulatory OTTV control in Hong Kong applies only to commercial and hotel buildings. As shown in Fig. 5, among various energy end-uses of the domestic sector, airconditioning was the lowest before 1986 but has surpassed all other energy end-uses since 1995 [68]. This trend shows that besides commercial and hotel buildings, good envelope energy performance is also needed for reducing energy use for air-conditioning in residential buildings in Hong Kong. Similar trend is expected to arise in many southern China cities along with the rapid economic growth. Compared to commercial buildings, heat gains from internal sources in residential ats are generally less intensive. Consequently, the envelope heat gain dominates the cooling load of a residential at [69] and thence OTTV would be a highly appropriate energy performance index if it could adequately reect the thermal performance of the envelope. However, a new set of coecients in the OTTV equation would need to be evaluated specically for residential buildings to account for the dierent air-conditioning patterns. A study similar to that on oce buildings as reported above has been conducted to examine if OTTV is applicable to high-rise air-conditioned residential buildings. Since air-conditioners are used primarily in living and dinning rooms and bedrooms in residential buildings, the study focused only on the envelope elements enclosing these types of rooms. Other types of rooms, such as kitchens and bathrooms, were excluded as they would normally be either naturally or mechanically ventilated. The parametric studies performed were based on a residential at model and a set of occupancy proles and internal load patterns that are representative of highrise residential buildings in Hong Kong.

Fig. 5. Various energy end-uses of the domestic sector in Hong Kong.

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7.1. The at model and the internal load proles and air-conditioning patterns The characteristics of the at model used in the study were assigned with values that represent the majority type of ats in residential buildings in Hong Kong, in respect of the number of various types of rooms in a at, the dimensions of the rooms, and areas and thermal characteristics of external walls and windows, as found in a recently conducted building characteristics survey [70]. Fig. 6 shows the conguration of the living and dining room and the bedroom in the at model. Table 9 summarises the building characteristics of the living and dining room and the bedroom. In addition to the living and dining room (denoted as Zone 1) and the bedroom (denoted as Zone 5), the at model includes other zones (Zones 24 and 68) that are connected to these rooms (Fig. 6). These room models were the basic components of the at

Fig. 6. Room layout model for: (a) a living and dining room; and (b) a bedroom.

F.W.H. Yik, K.S.Y. Wan / Energy 30 (2005) 4171 Table 9 Characteristics of the rooms (Zones 1 and 5) in the at model of residential building Building characteristics Wall thickness Wall construction Window-to-wall ratio (WWR)a Glass thickness Shading coecient of fenestration Wall solar absorptivity (a) External shading Zones 1 and 5 150 mm Heavy concrete w/cement plastering at both sides 0.45 6 mm 0.95 0.58 Nil

61

Table 10 Daily occupancy, lighting (in fractions of the installed lighting power intensity) and appliances power proles of residential building Hours (a) Living and dining room 246 67 78 89 912 1213 1314 1418 1819 1920 2023 2324 (b) Bedroom 241 16 67 78 89 913 1314 1417 1718 1819 1920 2022 2223 2324 Occupancy Lighting Household appliances power (W) 27.1 52.0 77.0 77.0 77.0 77.0 88.6 60.6 60.6 142.3 142.3 142.3 35.8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 15.0 15.0 15.0 35.8 35.8 44.8 44.8

0 0 0.5 1 1 0.9 1 1 1 1.5 2 0 2 2 1.9 0.5 0 0 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5 1 1 2

0.0 0.3 0.5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.0 0.5 0.3 0.0 0.5 0.2 0.3 0.0 1.0 1.0 0.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.0 0.6

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model, and the model can be modied conveniently to represent ats with dierent combinations of external walls and windows and exposure directions. The occupancy, lighting and appliances load proles and the patterns of utilisation of air-conditioners that are representative of typical households in Hong Kong were applied to the living and dining room and the bedrooms in the at model to account for the impacts of internal heat sources and the air-conditioning pattern on the heat gain from the envelope. These load proles and air-conditioning patterns were determined from the data gathered in an energy end-use survey of households in Hong Kong [70]. Table 10 shows the daily internal load proles for the living and dining room and the bedroom. The installed lighting power intensity for a living and dining room and a bedroom were 14 and 17 W/m2, respectively, which were the corresponding mean values found in the survey. The air-conditioned period for the living and dining room was between 13:00 and 22:00 and that for the bedroom between 13:00 and 07:00 (on the next day), which would remain the same every day from April to October inclusive, but no airconditioners would be operated outside these months in the year, as conrmed in the survey to be the case for the vast majority of the households in the sample. In the simulation study, the indoor temperature of an air-conditioned room was set steadily at v 22 C, and the inltration rate at 0.5 air change/h (ach), during air-conditioned periods. For rooms without air-conditioners and for those with air-conditioners but during unconditioned periods, it was assumed that while the room was occupied, the occupants would turn on a ventilation fan and/or open windows or doors to increase the ventilation rates in the rooms. The v lower ventilation rate, at 3 ach, was used when the indoor temperature stayed below 22 C, and v the higher rate, at 12 ach, was used whenever the indoor temperature equalled or exceeded 22 C. 7.2. Inuences of room envelope conguration on heat gains from individual envelope elements Two series of case studies had been conducted. The study targeted at analysing the heat gain from an external wall with fenestration, denoted as Surface 1 in the room model (Fig. 6). As in the study on oce buildings, the year-round total heat gain from the external wall (Surface 1) is the algebraic sum of the heat gains throughout the air-conditioned and unconditioned hours over the year, evaluated for each of the cases from hourly predictions obtained using the simulation program HTB2 [67]. 7.3. External wall with fenestration In the rst series of cases, Zones 1 and 5 (Fig. 6) each had only one external wall (Surface 1) with fenestration in the base-case. The window-to-wall area ratios in the two zones were both 0.45 (based only on the overall area of Surface 1). The room models were then modied such that the external walls in Zones 1 and 5 were both an opaque wall without fenestration. Table 11 shows the original heat gain intensities (the annual total heat gain per unit area per airconditioned hour) from the opaque and glazed parts of the external wall, and the percentage change in the heat gain intensity from the opaque part after the window in the wall was replaced by the opaque component. Four cases were studied, each with the wall facing a dierent direction. Compared with the heat gain intensities from envelope elements in the oce model, the heat gain intensities in the residential at model are much greater because of the

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Table 11 Heat gain intensities from the external wall (Surface 1) of the building model and the percentage changes in the heat gain intensity from the opaque part when the fenestration is removed Exposure (D) Living and dining room Base-case (W/m ) IW,I,D,B N E S W 22.27 21.82 22.67 30.58 IG,I,D,B 140.94 150.49 157.97 220.80
2

Bedroom Opaque wall (%) DIW,I,D 35.06 38.96 39.10 38.04 Base-case (W/m2) IW,I,D,B 18.22 18.00 18.49 22.53 IG,I,D,B 79.97 84.77 88.59 119.97 Opaque wall (%) DIW,I,D 22.48 24.76 25.01 26.21

much higher glazing shading coecient and wall U-value, the lower indoor temperature during air-conditioned periods and the fewer air-conditioned hours in the year. The results show that the heat gain intensity from the opaque part of Surface 1 in Zone 1 (a living and dining room) increased by more than 35% and that in zone 5 (a bedroom) by more than 22%. There are only small variations in these percentage changes when Surface 1 was positioned to the four dierent directions. The heat gain intensity from the opaque part of a wall with or without a window in it would have been identical if it was determined following the standard procedures for OTTV calculation using the same pre-calculated TDEQ. However, when there was no window and thus no solar gain, the internal surfaces of fabric elements enclosing the room will have lower temperatures, which caused the increase in heat gain from the external wall.

7.4. Numbers of external wall In the second series of case studies, the walls denoted as Surface 2 in the room models for both Zone 1 (a living and dining room) and Zone 5 (a bedroom) (Fig. 6) were each modied into an external wall without fenestration. Thus, Zones 1 and 5 each had two external walls (Surface 1 and 2). Table 12 shows the consequential percentage changes in the intensities of heat
Table 12 Percentage changes in the heat gain intensities of envelope elements in the original external wall when an additional external wall was included Exposure (D) Living and dining room Opaque wall DIW,I,D (%) N E S W 18.64 19.56 26.06 12.07 Fenestration DIG,I,D (%) 4.19 4.05 5.36 2.38 Bedroom Opaque wall DIW,I,D (%) 17.55 18.10 21.63 13.24 Fenestration DIG,I,D (%) 5.68 5.49 6.47 3.53

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gains from the envelope elements in Surface 1 of Zones 1 and 5. The presence of another external wall aected the radiant energy exchanges among the surfaces enclosing the room and this caused changes in the heat gain intensity from the opaque part of the original external wall (Surface 1) by 12% to 18%, and from its fenestration part by 2% to 4%, for the living and dining room (Zone 1), and by 13% to 18% and 4% to 6%, respectively, for the opaque and fenestration parts of the external wall (Surface 1) in the bedroom (Zone 5). 7.5. Further case studies Further simulation studies had been performed to provide a more comprehensive picture about whether OTTV would be an appropriate envelope energy performance index for residential buildings. This series of simulation study was based on six room models, referred to as Cases 16, which had characteristics as summarised in Table 13. The study focused on examining the heat gain intensity from one external wall, denoted as the 1st external wall. In Case 1, there was only one external wall that faced south. In Case 2, there was another external wall, the 2nd external wall, which faced west. The room model in Case 3 had also two external walls, but the 2nd external wall included a west facing window of the same characteristics as that in the 1st wall. The room model in Case 4 included 3 external walls, with the 1st and the 2nd wall exactly the same as those in Case 3, but the 3rd external wall was an east facing opaque wall without window. Simulation was performed for a series of cases, with the same adjustments made in each case to the constructions of the 1st and the other external wall(s), including the wall thickness for the opaque part and, where applicable, the window-to-wall ratio (WWR). Details of the adjustments made are shown in Table 13. Fig. 7 shows a scattered plot of the annual total heat gain intensity from the 1st wall (including the window and the opaque part of the wall) predicted in the simulations for Cases 14, denoted as the OTTV (of the 1st wall only), against the parameter 1 WWR Uwall , where WWR is the window-to-wall ratio and Uwall the U-value of the walls. A higher value of 1 WWR Uwall would mean a more signicant contribution from the opaque part of the external wall. Here, WWR refers only to the area ratio of the fenestration in a wall to the total area of the wall, but Uwall is the U-value for all the external walls in the at model, since the construction of the external walls were assumed to be identical for all the cases. According to the conventional OTTV calculation method, cases of the same value of 1 WWR Uwall (which are of the same wall construction, glazing properties and exposure direction) should lead to the same OTTV, because the same solar factor (SF) and equivalent temperature dierence (TDEQ) values would have been used in the calculation. Therefore, the four points for Cases 14 that correspond to the same 1 WWR Uwall value should appear in Fig. 7 as just one point if indeed single-valued SF and TDEQ could be used for predicting OTTV of envelope elements. However, as Fig. 7 shows, there are substantial vertical spreads in the OTTV of the 1st wall among the four Cases. It can be observed that the OTTV of the wall would drop with increase in the number of external walls that enclosed the same room and with the inclusion of a window at the other external wall. This shows that the interactions of the heat transfers at the opaque part and the fenestration part of an external wall with those of other external wall(s) are highly signicant. Therefore, the OTTV calculated based on pre-evaluated parameters may not be a true reection of the heat gain.

Table 13 Input variables for Cases 16 Living and dining room Case 1 Case 2 2 2 3 1 2 Case 3 Case 4 Case 5 Case 6 1 Orientation Window-to-wall ratio (WWR) Shading coecient Wall thickness Absorptivity Shading device 0.95 100300 mm in step increments of 50 mm 0.98 No LSF 0:0, LSF 0:1, 0.3 & 0.5 East 0.0 Same as 1st wall No South 0.050.65 in step increments of 0.10, 0.45, 0.45

Room type

No. of external wall(s)

Conguration of the 1st external wall

LSF 0:0, LSF 0:2, 0.4 West Opaque wall only Same as 1st wall Same as 1st wall

Conguration of the 2nd external wall West 0.0 Same as 1st wall Same as 1st wall Same as 1st wall No No No Same as 1st wall West West Orientation Window-to-wall ratio (WWR) Shading coecient Wall thickness Absorptivity Shading device Orientation Window-to-wall ratio (WWR) Shading coecient Wall thickness Absorptivity Shading device

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Conguration of the 3rd external wall

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Fig. 7. Heat gain intensity from the 1st external wall in the air-conditioned living and dining room model for Cases 14 (see Table 13 for details).

Studies have also been made into the eects of including an external shading device, a side-n at the left side of the window in a south facing external wall, on the OTTV of the external wall. The eects of the co-existence of another external wall in the same room were also investigated. These cases are denoted as Case 5 and 6, and details about the at models used are summarised in Table 13. The predicted surface heat gain intensities for the 1st wall are shown in Fig. 8. In addition to the signicant eects of the shading device, Fig. 8 also shows the interesting result that the heat gain intensity in Case 5 (with the 1st wall being the only external wall) with left side-n with a projection factor (LSF, as dened in Fig. 8) of 0.5 was even higher than the heat gain intensity in Case 6 without any external shading devices but with the presence of another external wall with no window.

Fig. 8. Heat gain intensity from the 1st external wall in the air-conditioned bedroom for Cases 5 and 6 (see Table 13 for details).

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The above results are considered sucient evidence to show that the use of OTTV that is based on the assumption that heat gain from each wall or window could be determined independent of other walls and windows and could be summed to yield to the overall heat gain, would not be a good indicator of the thermal performance of the envelope of an air-conditioned residential building. Accurate determination of heat gains of indoor spaces from the building envelope should take into account the interactive heat transfer among the walls and fenestrations, which would require the use of a detail building energy simulation program.

8. Conclusion Overall thermal transfer value (OTTV) is meant to be a measure of envelope thermal performance for air-conditioned buildings with which to set an energy eciency standard. When rst introduced in ASHARE Standard 90-75 in 1975, it was based on the heat transfer through the envelope that contributed to the peak cooling load. Its use in ASHRAE Standard 90 lasted for 14 years, and has been abandoned since Standard 90.1 was launched in 1989. However, OTTV continues to be used in the building energy codes of a number of countries, especially Asian countries. The concept and denition of OTTV have also evolved along with the continuous eorts made to improve its application, with the key objective to make OTTV an indicator of the impact of the envelope on the energy use for air-conditioning in buildings. For buildings situated in a sub-tropical climate region like Hong Kong, research studies showed that acceptable correlation between OTTV and energy use for air-conditioning (with all other things being equal) could be achieved only if the heat transfer in buildings during the cool months was ignored. Even though OTTV calculated in such a way may be a good reection of the impact of envelope performance on energy use for air-conditioning, it remains an inadequate measure of the envelope performance. As the case study results for oce and residential buildings presented in this paper show, the use of pre-calculated coecients for OTTV calculation has inherent deciencies, as the interacting eects among heat gains from dierent envelope elements and internal sources, and the impacts of room conguration cannot be properly accounted for. The OTTV determined from such methods, therefore, is subject to uncertainties and may be inconsistent with the envelope performance. OTTV is simple to use and thus the cost of implementing the regulatory control can be kept low, which may be a valid reason for basing the control on OTTV. To be eective, regulatory control over building energy performance needs to include requirements on the energy performance of building services installations. In order to provide designers with exibility in meeting the control requirements in the most economical manner, compliance through an alternative route that is based on the total energy budget approach, as in ASHRAE Standard 90.1, should be provided. In this case, detailed computer simulation becomes an integral part of compliance demonstration. When detailed simulation is used, minimum performance required of individual types of envelope components can be specied on the basis of more basic characteristics, e.g. the characteristics of a particular wall construction and glazing and a window-to-wall area ratio limit, instead of using the simplistic OTTV method, which is prone to errors. Therefore, for regimes that are still using OTTV as a means for controlling building energy performance, a

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second thought should be given to whether or not to continue with its use as a regulatory instrument.

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