Ventilative cooling through automated window opening control systems to address thermal discomfort risk during the summer period: Framework, simulation and parametric analysis

Automated window opening control systems with integrated ventilative cooling strategies may significantly diminish the thermal discomfort and overheating risk of dwellings during cooling periods in temperate climates. One of the challenges with demonstrating the benefits of the systems is the lack of building performance simulation (BPS) tools which may represent precisely how actual algorithms are applied. The study supported herein aims to present a framework of how to simulate an advanced ventilative cooling algorithm of a window system on coupled BPS environments (ESP-r and BCVTB tools). Parametric analysis has been conducted to verify specific operational functions of the system. The analysis uses a renovated single-family house in Denmark (monitored June–August, 2016). Parametric analysis was highlighted that the performance of the developed ventilative cooling strategy for these climatic conditions was not affected by the number of opening steps (3 or 5) for low and medium natural indoor ventilation cooling set points (22–24 °C). For all the examined spaces, the static trigger set points perform better than the dynamic for all the evaluating metrics and criteria that were included in this study. Under the proposed framework, the simulation of any other developed ventilative cooling concept or system is possible.