Exemplary Energy engaged Anderson Energy Efficiency in July to support our work to incorporate Darwin in the July EWEI analysis. Anderson were commissioned to generate three building archetypes compliant with the National Construction Code (NCC) 2019 in Climate Zone (CZ) 1: a 3-storey office building (Class 5b), a 10-storey office building (Class 5a) and a supermarket (Class 6). We used the opportunity to update our archetypes in CZ 2 as well.
Subsequently, we have worked to update the rest of our building archetypes in CZ 5, CZ 6 and CZ 7 to comply with NCC 2019, and ahead of our November EWEI edition we finalised our work and included them in the simulations of the latest EWEI edition.
Most of the changes to the new archetypes were implemented to reflect the effective increase in stringency of the NCC 2019 provisions for energy efficiency for commercial buildings. Additionally, a major change from the previous version can be found in the HVAC system, which was utilising electricity for cooling and gas for heating in our old archetypes. In fact, as much as an archetype cannot encompass all the different building designs that have been built in Australia, we aim to be as representative as possible of recent buildings design. Thus, considering the decreasing number of gas HVAC systems utilised in commercial buildings in the last decade, we decided to adopt an all-in-one heating and cooling solution and designed a Packaged Terminal Heat Pumps (PTHP) for all the new archetypes in the different climate zones. The HAVC was designed as zoned-based deemed to satisfy (DTS) compliant system, utilising one system per thermal zone of the building, and setting the rated Coefficient of Performance (COP) for both heating and cooling to compliant values following the Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) values from Table 3.1 of the AS-NZS 3823.2:2013.
Furthermore, the window-to-wall ratio was derived from a study from Foo and Shen (2016), who carried out a survey across Australia in order to ascertain the average WWR of a variety of buildings such as hospitals, education, retail, hotels, aged care and office buildings. Thus, starting from a WWR of 38%, 49%, and 33% for, respectively, the 3-storey office, the 10-storey office and the supermarket, the final glazing solution was chosen utilising U-values and Solar Heat Gain Coefficients (SHGC) calculated with the NCC 2019 Façade calculator.
While a direct comparison in terms of end uses between the new and old archetypes would not be appropriate due to the substantial differences with the HVAC system, we carried out a thorough quality assurance analysis at the end of our design process to guarantee that the simulations results will be up to standards.
REFERENCES
Foo, Grace & Shen, Daniel. (2018). Australian Commercial Buildings Window to Wall Ratios.
Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment – Digital, Communications and Transformation (RSM) – MEPS standard for single-phase ducted air conditioners and air-to-air heat pumps, single-phase non-ducted air conditioners and heat pumps, multiple split-system air conditioners and air-to-air heat pumps, and three-phase air conditioners and heat pumps: AS/NZS 3823.2:2013: Performance of electrical appliances—Air conditioners and heat pumps
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