For example, I'd like to see window sizes restricted to 40% of total wall area in temperate climates for commercial and multi unit residential buildings. How would I measure its direct impact on energy consumption and be able to isolate it from other factors like more efficient appliances in new builds, smaller units, etc?
A good programm that fits your requirements is TRNSYS. It is used for simulating transient systems with the help of a typical meteorological year. You will design a model of your building and can test the impact of different sized windows or solar thermal heating systems. I used it for a project in Morocco and it was a great help.
They had free student versions. Check if your University gives you access.
http://sel.me.wisc.edu/trnsys/demos/demo.html
Dear Terri,
Erik rightly said about TRNSYS. I also used to optimize a vernacular building in warm and humid climate of North-East India. This paper was presented in PLEA 2014. You will find this paper in my publication list.
Hope this will help you.
The room temperature will not leave the predicted range. The predicted heating demand during winter periods and cooling demand during summer will fit.
Since your original question was, "What's a good methodology...". I believe the answer to this is to perform a before-and-after whole-building simulation. What energy simulation tool you use is a different question. Buildings are a "complex system" made up of interconnected and interactive components, so trying to simulation an individual part (like window size) will not reveal the effect of an adopted code. It seems to me that you would want to model a building using current standards and run it as a base case. Then, model the building that complies to the newly proposed energy standard, run it as the "code building" and then compare results. I think this would be the best way to measure the real impact of the code. If you've changed only the window sizes (while keeping the small appliances and other building features constant), then the whole-building performance results will tell you the impact of that one change on the overall performance of the building. While TRNSYS is one reliable energy simulation tool, there are numerous others that do a good job of predicting annual energy consumption as well as internal human comfort conditions. Most models will employ similar typical weather data sources.
Simulation programs is the best way for your case to fix all other factors and focus on window to wall ratio. you can use Design Builder or TRNSYS . both are good in calculating energy consumption. However, TRNSYS is more detailed in mechanics.
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