A Study on the LEED Energy Simulation Process

In the domestic and international environmentally friendly certification system, energy-related credit occupies a high ratio in the total distribution of certification score Leadership in the Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system is a certification system developed by the US Green Building Council (USGBC) in order to assess the environmental friendliness of buildings. The energy-related credit is approximately 30% of the total and also the energy simulation ratio specifically is the highest among the single credits as it is 20%. In this research, the energy simulation process using Building Information Modeling (BIM) based on the energy simulation case performed at the A-Tower, LEED certification was proposed. It places an emphasis on the verification process which was short in the previous research. The architectural geometry modeled through the BIM tool is converted to the gbXML, and in this process the geometry is verified through the interference check functions, the gbXML Viewer and the FZKViewer. The energy simulation is performed after the verification procedure. The geometry verification process in the A-Tower project is presented throughout this paper. In conclusion, an improved process is proposed for the productivity and reliability of energy simulation. "Green Building" and "Energy Consumption Reduction" have become the major challenges of the whole building industry. In particular, the energy consumption from the building sector by countries is 45% in the US and 42% in the UK, while the average of 31% is accounted for in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries in comparison with the total energy consumption of the entire industry. In Korea, however, the energy consumption of the building sector is 24.5% compared with the industry total (1) Energy consumption for buildings in Korea does not reach the average consumption of OECD countries. However, following the interests and demand for comfortable indoor environmental quality depending on higher income level, the energy demand of the building sector is expected to sharply rise. Therefore, it is very important to achieve the challenges of a "Green Building" and "Energy Consumption Reduction" within the building sector. In spite of the increase of building energy demands, the Kyoto Protocol enforces nations to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 26.69% or below compared to 2006 through the reduction of the buildings' energy consumption. The general interests for buildings' energy consumption reduction have been spread throughout the globe. It can be found to cause many challenges in several countries; the United Kingdom has targeted building new homes with zero energy by 2016, Germany aims to build