EnergyPlus EMS Methodology for Dynamic Integration of Earth-to-Air Heat Exchangers in Building Energy Simulation: Implementation, Calibration and Annual Performance Assessment

Earth-to-air heat exchangers (EAHEs) use ground thermal inertia to precondition ventilation air, but their representation in whole-building simulation is limited by the simplified geometry and internally defined heat-transfer formulation of the native EnergyPlus ZoneEarthtube model. This study develops a Python/EMS methodology that dynamically couples EnergyPlus with a segmented effectiveness–NTU model driven by the Kusuda–Achenbach ground-temperature formulation. A vertical helical EAHE installed in Covilhã, Portugal, was represented using measured pipe-path lengths and burial depths, with temperatures monitored at five locations (A–E). The model was calibrated using the first 96 observations of dataset E1 at 27.9 m3 h−1, temporally evaluated against the remaining 67 observations, and transferred without refitting to dataset E2 at 51.3 m3 h−1. Across A–E, RMSE values were 1.446 °C for calibration, 1.123 °C for temporal evaluation, and 1.885 °C for transfer. At point E, ZoneEarthtube yielded lower RMSE than the NTU model for the E1 hold-out (0.332 vs. 0.621 °C) and E2 transfer dataset (1.424 vs. 1.603 °C), but showed a larger negative bias in E2 (−1.259 vs. +0.427 °C). Over 8760 h with identical weather forcing, the two EnergyPlus implementations showed close outlet-temperature consistency (RMSE 0.413 °C, MAE 0.351 °C, MBE +0.048 °C). Native annual precooling and preheating differed by −3.18% and +1.86%, respectively, with different mass-flow treatments. The results support the EMS–NTU framework as a flexible, experimentally anchored alternative for EAHEs requiring segment-specific depths and user-defined thermal parameters.