The urban canyon and building energy use: Urban density versus daylight and passive solar gains

2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (8) ◽  
pp. 2011-2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Strømann-Andersen ◽  
P.A. Sattrup
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Urban Canyon ◽  
Urban Density ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Passive Solar

scholarly journals Global scenarios of urban density and its impacts on building energy use through 2050

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (34) ◽  
pp. 8945-8950 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burak Güneralp ◽  
Yuyu Zhou ◽  
Diana Ürge-Vorsatz ◽  
Mukesh Gupta ◽  
Sha Yu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Form ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Sub Saharan Africa ◽  
Urban Density ◽  
Heating And Cooling ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Building Energy Use

Although the scale of impending urbanization is well-acknowledged, we have a limited understanding of how urban forms will change and what their impact will be on building energy use. Using both top-down and bottom-up approaches and scenarios, we examine building energy use for heating and cooling. Globally, the energy use for heating and cooling by the middle of the century will be between 45 and 59 exajoules per year (corresponding to an increase of 7–40% since 2010). Most of this variability is due to the uncertainty in future urban densities of rapidly growing cities in Asia and particularly China. Dense urban development leads to less urban energy use overall. Waiting to retrofit the existing built environment until markets are ready in about 5 years to widely deploy the most advanced renovation technologies leads to more savings in building energy use. Potential for savings in energy use is greatest in China when coupled with efficiency gains. Advanced efficiency makes the least difference compared with the business-as-usual scenario in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa but significantly contributes to energy savings in North America and Europe. Systemic efforts that focus on both urban form, of which urban density is an indicator, and energy-efficient technologies, but that also account for potential co-benefits and trade-offs with human well-being can contribute to both local and global sustainability. Particularly in growing cities in the developing world, such efforts can improve the well-being of billions of urban residents and contribute to mitigating climate change by reducing energy use in urban areas.

scholarly journals Evaluation of Urban-Scale Building Energy-Use Models and Tools—Application for the City of Fribourg, Switzerland

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 1595
Author(s):  
Valeria Todeschi ◽  
Roberto Boghetti ◽  
Jérôme H. Kämpf ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Space Heating ◽  
Engineering Model ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The City

Building energy-use models and tools can simulate and represent the distribution of energy consumption of buildings located in an urban area. The aim of these models is to simulate the energy performance of buildings at multiple temporal and spatial scales, taking into account both the building shape and the surrounding urban context. This paper investigates existing models by simulating the hourly space heating consumption of residential buildings in an urban environment. Existing bottom-up urban-energy models were applied to the city of Fribourg in order to evaluate the accuracy and flexibility of energy simulations. Two common energy-use models—a machine learning model and a GIS-based engineering model—were compared and evaluated against anonymized monitoring data. The study shows that the simulations were quite precise with an annual mean absolute percentage error of 12.8 and 19.3% for the machine learning and the GIS-based engineering model, respectively, on residential buildings built in different periods of construction. Moreover, a sensitivity analysis using the Morris method was carried out on the GIS-based engineering model in order to assess the impact of input variables on space heating consumption and to identify possible optimization opportunities of the existing model.

scholarly journals A Rapid Review on Community Connected Microgrids

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6753
Author(s):  
Moiz Masood Syed ◽  
Gregory M. Morrison
Keyword(s):  
Literature Review ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Optimal Solution ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Rapid Review ◽  
Solar Pv ◽  
Electricity Cost ◽  
Building Energy Use

As the population of urban areas continues to grow, and construction of multi-unit developments surges in response, building energy use demand has increased accordingly and solutions are needed to offset electricity used from the grid. Renewable energy systems in the form of microgrids, and grid-connected solar PV-storage are considered primary solutions for powering residential developments. The primary objectives for commissioning such systems include significant electricity cost reductions and carbon emissions abatement. Despite the proliferation of renewables, the uptake of solar and battery storage systems in communities and multi-residential buildings are less researched in the literature, and many uncertainties remain in terms of providing an optimal solution. This literature review uses the rapid review technique, an industry and societal issue-based version of the systematic literature review, to identify the case for microgrids for multi-residential buildings and communities. The study describes the rapid review methodology in detail and discusses and examines the configurations and methodologies for microgrids.

scholarly journals The Development of a Biomimetic Design Tool for Building Energy Efficiency

Biomimetics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 50
Author(s):  
Negin Imani ◽  
Brenda Vale
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Thermal Adaptation ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Design Tool ◽  
Building Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Efficient Buildings ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Architectural Framework

The initial aim of the research was to develop a framework that would enable architects to look for thermoregulation methods in nature as inspiration for designing energy efficient buildings. The thermo-bio-architectural framework (ThBA) assumes designers will start with a thermal challenge in a building and then look in a systematic way for how this same issue is solved in nature. The tool is thus a contribution to architectural biomimicry in the field of building energy use. Since the ThBA was created by an architect, it was essential that the biology side of this cross-disciplinary tool was validated by experts in biology. This article describes the focus group that was conducted to assess the quality, inclusiveness, and applicability of the framework and why a focus group was selected over other possible methods such as surveys or interviews. The article first provides a brief explanation of the development of the ThBA. Given the focus here is on its validation, the qualitative data collection procedures and analysis results produced by NVivo 12 plus through thematic coding are described in detail. The results showed the ThBA was effective in bridging the two fields based on the existing thermal challenges in buildings, and was comprehensive in terms of generalising biological thermal adaptation strategies.

Cost Optimization of Net-Zero Energy House

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
George A. Mertz ◽  
Gregory S. Raffio ◽  
Kelly Kissock
Keyword(s):  
Energy Use ◽  
Cost Optimization ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Resource Limitations ◽  
Net Zero Energy ◽  
Net Zero ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
The Cost

Environmental and resource limitations provide increased motivation for design of net-zero energy or net-zero CO2 buildings. The optimum building design will have the lowest lifecycle cost. This paper describes a method of performing and comparing lifecycle costs for standard, CO2-neutral and net-zero energy buildings. Costs of source energy are calculated based on the cost of photovoltaic systems, tradable renewable certificates, CO2 credits and conventional energy. Building energy simulation is used to determine building energy use. A case study is conducted on a proposed net-zero energy house. The paper identifies the least-cost net-zero energy house, the least-cost CO2 neutral house, and the overall least-cost house. The methodology can be generalized to different climates and buildings. The method and results may be of interest to builders, developers, city planners, or organizations managing multiple buildings.

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