Energy simulation of a single family dwelling with a modular object-oriented tool.

In the present paper, the NEST-Buildings software platform has been used to study the thermal behaviour of a single-family dwelling located in the Netherlands. The whole building is modelled as a collection of elements (e.g., walls, rooms, outdoors, people, ventilation, solar radiation distributor, HVAC, etc.) connected between them through boundary conditions. New configurations can be easily handled by adding/removing elements. Furthermore, the building elements may be modelled with different physical models (ranging from global, 1D, 2D, 3D to CFD&HT models) enabling the modelling of complex systems with different levels of detail in the same simulation.