Interaction effects between building- and multi-energy systems design variables

By simultaneously considering geometrical and energy systems design parameters, synergies between building energy demand and supply can be exploited in the design of low-carbon buildings. However, existing literature lacks explicit quantification of such synergies. This work investigates the parameter interdependence between the building design problem (energy demand) and the respective Multi Energy Systems design problem (energy supply) for buildings in the city of Zurich, Switzerland. This is done using two global sensitivity analyses in sequence: first, a Morris screening to identify the subset of the most important parameters, and then a Sobol analysis to quantify their individual (direct) influence and their shared influence (through interactions) on the design output. The workflow includes sampling real building geometries, energy demand simulations with EnergyPlus/Honeybee, and multi-energy systems design optimisation using a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming model. Results show that parameter interdependence (interactions) between building- and multi-energy systems design has a significant impact on the variance of the cost and carbon emission outputs, particularly for the emission- rather than the cost output variance. Additionally, geometrical design parameters are most likely to interact, followed by energy systems, and lastly demand parameters.