Abstract

The  accuracy of building energy needs estimation is one of the most important challenges of building energy research. The boundary conditions have a significant impact on building energy performance and studies in the literature demonstrated that considering  the uncertainty in input parameters is essential to achieve a more realistic energy model. One of the  quantities defining the boundary condition that is most subject to uncertainty  is the incident solar radiation on the building envelope, composed by direct, diffuse and ground reflected radiation. Trees, adjacent buildings and street optical-radiative  properties affect the short-wave radiation incident on building facades.
This PhD research, will look for a framework to quantify the uncertainty of incident radiation on the building envelope in order to provide a more accurate model of urban canyon environment of building. Among the mentioned factor, the uncertainty quantification of the ground reflectance parameter is discussed in the present paper . The reliability of the performance of two different shading scenarios is  assessed based on the outputs of the uncertainty quantification. The first  scenario is an on/off controlled shading based on the incident solar radiation.  After this  analysis, designers may find an optimal schedule for the presented shading  system, depending on the building use. The second scenario, proposes a fix  shade, highlighting the importance of uncertainty in ground reflected  radiations while assessing the reliability of a shading design.
Key words:
Uncertainty, solar incident, shading devices, Performance gap.