A Fourier series model to predict hourly heating and cooling energy use incommercial buildings with outdoor temperature as the only weather variable

Accurate modeling of hourly heating and cooling energy use in commercial bu ildings can be achieved by a Generalized Fourier Series (GFS) approach invo lving weather variables such as dry-bulb temperature, specific humidity and horizontal solar flux. However, there are situations when only temperature data is available. The objective of this gaper is to (i) describe developm ent of a variant of the GFS approach which allows modeling both heating and cooling hourly energy use in commercial buildings with outdoor temperature as the only weather variable and (ii) illustrate its application with moni tored hourly data from several buildings in Texas. It is found that the new Temperature based Fourier Series (TFS) approach (i)provides better approxi mation to heating energy use than the existing GFS approach, ((ii) can indi rectly account for humidity and solar effects in the cooling energy use, (i ii) offers physical insight into the operating pattern of a building HVAC s ystem and (iv) can be used for diagnostic purposes.