Gas Stirling engine μCHP boiler experimental data driven model for building energy simulation

•A gas Stirling μCHP device has been tested.•A μCHP data driven dynamic model has been implemented in TRNSYS environment.•The model developed takes into account transient and steady state phases.•The model is suitable with building energy simulation.•A simplified procedure for model parameterization is proposed. A dynamic model for the simulation of gas micro combined heat and power devices (μCHP boilers) has been developed in order to assess their energy performances. From a literature review and experimental investigations, the new model is designed with the aim of limiting the number of parameters which need to be easily accessible in order to be suitable with annual building energy simulations. At first, this paper focuses on the description of the μCHP boiler which has been tested, on the development of the test bench and on the experimental results. Then, it focuses on the model description, on its parameterization and on its validation. The modelling approach is based on an energy balance on the device and on empirical expressions for the main inputs and outputs. The model characterizes the μCHP boiler behaviour for different inlet water flow rates and temperatures. The dynamic phases with the start-up and cooling phases are taken into account. Finally, the models for the Stirling engine and the additional boiler are limited respectively to 28 and 24. Further experimental investigations led to simplify the μCHP model from 28 to 17 parameters without reducing the accuracy.