HVAC Seasons

[joseph-robertson]

Pull Request Description

Companion PR: https://github.com/NREL/resstock-estimation/pull/416

Their sampled options determine what to assign to hvac_control_heating_season_period and hvac_control_cooling_season_period, respectively.

Checklist

Not all may apply:

• [ ] Tests (and test files) have been updated
• [ ] Documentation has been updated
  • [ ] If related to resstock-estimation, checklist includes data dictionary, source report, options saturation, options_lookup.
• [ ] Changelog has been updated
• [ ] openstudio tasks.rb update_measures has been run
• [ ] No unexpected regression test changes on CI (checked comparison artifacts)

[joseph-robertson]

Questions from meeting:

• Why did we move away from Building America seasons to year-round seasons? When/why would we use Building America seasons?
  • We weren't capturing shoulder seasons; can easily miss one or more months of significant heating/cooling energy use.
  • The [Building America] seasons are only based on outdoor temperature, not the efficiency of the building.
  • Only drawback [to year-round seasons] being that you see a small amount of heating in summer or cooling in winter.
• Do seasons factor into HVAC sizing?
  • No; it's based on the 1%/99% design conditions.