Investigation of Heat Storage Coupled with Night Ventilation for Office Buildings in Summer in Cold Regions of China

Abstract

Abstract Building operational energy consumption, which constitutes a significant portion of China’s total social energy consumption, is a top priority in current research on energy-saving buildings. Thermal mass can be utilized to store heat energy in buildings, resulting in energy flexibility on the demand side. Numerical simulations in this paper study the whole heat transfer process of building thermal mass and the distribution of indoor air temperature and thermal mass temperature under different ventilation conditions in Jinan, a typical city in cold regions of China. By implementing a night ventilation scheme, buildings with high thermal storage capacity can store substantial amounts of cooling energy, resulting in a lower indoor temperature on the following day, and thereby improving overall indoor comfort. During the day, the wall surface temperature drops to less than 302 K, and the indoor temperature decreases by 2∼4 K, while the wall absorbs 1535 kJ of indoor heat. The rule of heat storage and release of heat mass is studied in this paper, and the feasibility of energy use flexibility on the demand side is demonstrated.