Discusses the use of a building thermal analysis methodology in which the stochastic nature of the external climate is considered. This method provides a rational and convenient way of handling uncertainty in the analysis and design of the thermal system. A set of stochastic differential equations is used to model the thermal behaviour of the building, which provides the means and standard deviations of the room air temperature and cooling load. For verification purposes, this method is applied to a small-scale problem that also clarifies the importance of the correlations of the climate. A method of calculating the distribution of an integrated space-cooling load as a basis for evaluating the integrated part-load values (IPLV) is shown by making use of the proposed method of thermal analysis.

KEYWORDS: climate, buildings, room temperature, cooling load, calculating, part load, heat load, heat flow, thermal properties, solar radiation, outdoor temperature, space cooling