Computation of Thermal Energy Delivered
We often want to compute the thermal energy conducted to the exterior of buildings but we don’t have a simple way to directly measure energy. If we know our building dimensions and materials and the interior and exterior temperatures, we can estimate the energy lost. By comparing this to other energy measures like gas meters or bills, we can look for losses.
- We measure the temperatures at regular intervals
- These data are called a time series
- We combine these temperature data with the UA value of the building to create a time series of power
- If we plot this time series with power on the y-axis and time on the x-axis, we can construct boxes with energy as the area
- Adding up these areas estimates the energy lost through conduction
