atmosphere Article How Much Building Renewable Energy Is Enough? The Vertical City Weather Generator (VCWG v1.4.4) Amir A. Aliabadi 1,* , Mohsen Moradi 1 , Rachel M. McLeod 1 , David Calder 2 and Robert Dernovsek 2 1 School of Engineering, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON N1G 2W1, Canada;
[email protected] (M.M.);
[email protected] (R.M.M.) 2 Blue Valley Building Corp., 76 Dawson Rd., Guelph, ON N1H 1A8, Canada;
[email protected] (D.C.);
[email protected] (R.D.) * Correspondence:
[email protected] Abstract: A challenge in the integration of renewable and alternative energy systems for buildings is the determination of the renewable energy ratio, which involves the selection and sizing of appropriate building systems. To address this need, a micro climate-weather software titled the Vertical City Weather Generator (VCWG) is further developed to include renewable and alternative energy systems and account for full two-way interaction between the building system and outdoor environment. VCWG is forced to simulate performance of a residential building in Guelph, Canada, for an entire year in 2015. Various energy options are considered and further optimized for the building to reduce natural gas consumption, electricity consumption, and cost. On an annual basis using the global cost method, and compared to a building with no such renewable or alternative energy systems, the optimized system resulted in 80.3% savings in natural gas consumption, 73.4% savings in electricity consumption, and 3% savings is annualized cost. According to this analysis, some technologies, such as photovoltaics are more favorable in the Canadian climate than other Citation: Aliabadi, A.A.; Moradi, M.; technologies.