Design specification and system architecture of a decision support of energy efficiency building retrofit and maintenance instructions

This paper describes the development of a methodology to better support retrofit and maintenance for optimised energy consumption based on automated decision support. The process takes into account evolving technologies in material, components and systems at building and neighbourhood levels to make optimised decisions for users and clients. The methodology builds on a retrofit and maintenance scenario then specification of the functional requirements, databases requirement and system architecture for the creation and operation of the decision support tool. Decision support tools have already been developed for architects and building designers to choose best building design options with retrofit and maintenance in mind. However, there is still a lack of understanding of the required data structures, databases and system architecture for advanced and easy decision making. The proposed method involves energy performance analyses of the proposed solutions and interactions with the user to reach an optimal choice for the client. To choose the optimal solution the system will automatically generate all possible alternatives then conduct an evaluation of the options on the basis of a selection of criteria. First the criteria are weighed for their importance to use in ranking the alternatives automatically. The proposed DS tool would support Facility Management (FM) to design their option on Building Information Model (BIM) file, using energy performance analysis and other techniques without being an expert in building energy performance analysis and simulation or costing for example. The functional requirements for the retrofit and maintenance design scenario are discussed and an exhaustive list is generated. The decision support tool is structured using four building blocks which are: (i) energy performance and simulation block; (ii) retrofit and maintenance options generator; (iii) optimisation block and; (iv) the decision making block that is based on Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method.