Research on Dynamic Thermal Characteristics and Energy-Saving Rate of Intermittent Heating Rooms

Continuous space heating is generally adopted for buildings in cold regions of northern China. The energy consumption for space heating is very large. Since office buildings are usually not occupied during nights, intermittent space heating could be used to shorten the heating time and save energy. This present paper studies how much energy could be saved and which factors affect the energy-saving compared to continuous heating. This paper selects a typical room in an office building, adopts room heat balance method, and establishes the dynamic thermal model of the room, and studies the dynamic thermal characteristics and energy-saving rate of intermittent heating. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Compared to continuous heating, the energy-saving rate of intermittent heating is 17.9% when the preheating period is 1 h for this case. (2) The energy-saving rate reduces with the increase of preheating period. When the preheating period is 4 h, the energy-saving rate is 10.7%. The preheating period should be less than 2 h for this case.