A novel developed method to study the energy/exergy flows of buildings compared to the traditional method

The present article focuses on finding a more accurate method to draw the energy and exergy flows that have drawn previously by many researchers. These days the accuracy of the flow is more important because there are some consequent calculations which depend on them such as the exergoeconomic analysis. The present method depends on the real data of energy and exergy analyses for each component of the building’s system. Energy, exergy, and exergoeconomic analyses were achieved on the Al-Andalus model school that is chosen as a case study. The results reveal that there are no differences between total energy and exergy demands estimation for both methods which are 1832 GJ and 1530 GJ, respectively. Although there are real differences in energy/exergy losses and efficiencies of some components and the exergoeconomic results, the developed method provided more accurate results in the energy/exergy losses and efficiencies calculations. For instance, the exergy losses of generation in traditional and developed methods are 934 GJ and 725 GJ, respectively. Moreover, the cost of energy demand that is calculated by the developed method represents the real cost (37,000 USD), whereas its estimated value by traditional method is 40,500 USD. Based on the comparison, adopting this method in the potential calculations achieves closer results to the reality that can lead to more improvements in building’s performance analyses.