The sun's influence on monitored gas consumptions for domestic heating

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Abstract
Solar irradiation is recognised as an important parameter in the design process to determine the size of heating or cooling equipment for any building. There are numerous references to its effect in literature and the CIBS Guide contains information on, for example, mean monthly values for different latitudes and different times of year. Moreover, field studies have often measured solar irradiation specifically and modelling studies have given careful attention to it. Yet procedures to estimate energy consumption for the heating of buildings generally acknowledge temperature as the only meteorological variable to have a significant influence, and empirical analysis of measured data from field studies has, more often than not, failed to identify irradiation as a significant determinant of consumption. This apparent contradiction has been examined by statistically analysing measurements of weekly gas consumptions and associated data from three recent field studies of heating in dwellings. The results show that solar irradiation has an identifiable and significant effect. But the results also show that meteorological temperature and solar irradiation are themselves partially correlated. Thus the omission of solar irradiation from any analysis will result in its effect being partially attributed to temperature. The sensitivity of heating demand to changes in temperature will consequently be overestimated.

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