Degree Days - Handle with Care!
Summary
Its aim is not to denigrate the degree-day-based methods that are widely accepted in the energy industry, but to highlight the major sources of inaccuracy, and to encourage the reader to ensure the validity of degree-day-calculated figures before using them as a foundation for decision making. Central to this is the assumption that energy consumption is caused by a "driving factor" (or "driver") - this could be the widgets produced by a production line, or, in the case of heating or cooling, the degree days. (Thanks to the complicated way in which buildings retain heat/coolth, there is a time lag, typically of the order of hours not minutes, between changes in the temperature outside and their effect on the energy consumption inside. Its only worth looking at the absolute numbers (e.g. excess kWh or cost) once youve determined from the proportional differences (e.g. percentage above expected) that they are likely to be meaningful (and not just a symptom of calculation inaccuracies). Degree-day-based monitoring and targeting is a central part of many energy management programmes, but degree days are commonly used in ways that can easily lead to inaccurate, misleading results.
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