A method for energy efficiency assessment during urban energy planning

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Regina de Casas Castro Marins
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Urban Morphology ◽  
Pollutant Emissions ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Urban Energy

Purpose – Energy use in urban areas has turned a subject of local and worldwide interest over the last few years, especially emphasized by the correlated greenhouse gases emissions. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the overall energy efficiency potential and emissions resulting from integrated solutions in urban energy planning, in the scale of districts and neighbourhoods in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is based on the description and the application of a method to analyse energy performance of urban areas and support their planning. It is a quantitative bottom-up method and involves urban morphology, urban mobility, buildings and energy supply systems. Procedures are applied to the case study of Agua Branca urban development area, located in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Findings – In the case of Agua Branca area, energy efficiency measures in buildings have shown to be very important mostly for the buildings economies themselves. For the area as a whole, strategies in promoting public transport are more effective in terms of energy efficiency and also to decrease pollutant emissions. Originality/value – Literature review has shown there is a lack of approaches and procedures able to support urban energy planning at a community scale. The bottom-up method presented in this paper integrates a plenty of disaggregated and multisectoral parameters at the same stage in urban planning and shows that is possible to identify the most promising actions by building overall performance indexes.

Assessment of energy performance using bottom-up method

2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-216
Author(s):  
Khadidja El-Bahdja Djebbar ◽  
Souria Salem ◽  
Abderrahmane Mokhtari
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Bottom Up ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Consumption Index ◽  
Physical Information ◽  
Thermal Simulations ◽  
Existing Housing

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze energy performance of the multi-storey buildings built in the city of Tlemcen between 1872 and 2016. Design/methodology/approach A diagnosis based on a bottom-up methodology, using statistical techniques and engineering, has been developed and applied. To do this, demand condition analysis was conducted using a data collection survey on a sample of 100 case studies. Physical characteristics of the buildings have been determined through the archetype by period. This serves to define the strengths and weaknesses of buildings as energy consumers. Findings The obtained results showed that dwellings built between 1872 and 1920 offer better energy performance with a consumption index close to 130kWh/m2/year and this compared to the five periods considered. For dwellings built between 1974 and 1989, energy consumption is higher with an index approaching 300kWh/m2/year, thus qualifying the buildings of this period as energy intensive. Originality/value A database is established to collect physical information on the existing housing stock and thus allow their classification vis-à-vis of the energy label. This study is part of a research project aimed at evaluating and determining optimal measures for energy rehabilitation of multi-family buildings in Tlemcen. Thermal rehabilitation solutions are proposed using thermal simulations, in the following studies, to improve thermal performance of existing buildings. This study constitutes the first step of a roadmap applicable to other cities constituting climatic zones in Algeria. This helps to enrich the Algerian thermal regulation in thermal rehabilitation of existing residential buildings and conception of new ones, in urban areas with a similar climate.

scholarly journals Improving energy efficiency in Vietnamese tube houses

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 366-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Phan Anh Nguyen ◽  
Regina Bokel ◽  
Andy van den Dobbelsteen
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Indoor Environment ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Housing Stock ◽  
Building Design ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Actual Energy Consumption

Purpose Refurbishing houses is considered a key measure to improve the energy efficiency of the built environment. However, little is known about the implementation and outcome of housing renovation for energy upgrades in the Vietnamese practice. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the energy performance of the current housing stock in Vietnam and the potential to reduce energy use in households. Design/methodology/approach The paper is based on a survey with 153 respondents in three major climatic regions of Vietnam. The survey focusses on building characteristics, environmental performance, energy performance and refurbishment activities. Data collected from the survey were statistically analysed to give insight into the current performance of the housing stock and its energy saving potential. Findings This paper concludes that building design and construction, particularly the building envelope, have a significant influence on the occupants’ comfort. However, the energy consumption in houses is not statistically associated with building design and indoor environment. It is suggested that financial status and occupants’ behaviour currently have a strong influence on the household energy use. The survey also showed that refurbishment improves the housing performance, especially if improving the indoor environment was one of the drivers. Originality/value There are very few studies on energy use in households in Vietnam, especially with regards to actual energy consumption. This paper brings insights into the actual energy consumption and reveals the “performance gap” in Vietnamese housing stock.

Using the private finance initiative for energy efficiency projects at the urban scale

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto De Marco ◽  
Giulio Mangano ◽  
Fania Valeria Michelucci ◽  
Giovanni Zenezini
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Light Emitting Diode ◽  
Project Finance ◽  
Private Finance Initiative ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Light Emitting ◽  
Alternate Forms ◽  
Private Investors

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to suggest the usage of the project finance (PF) scheme as a suitable mechanism to fund energy efficiency projects at the urban scale and present its advantages and adoption barriers. Design/methodology/approach – A case study is developed to renew the traffic lighting system of an Italian town via replacement of the old lamps with new light-emitting diode (LED) technology. Several partners are involved in the case project to construct a viable PF arrangement. Findings – The case study presents the viability of the proposed PF scheme that provides for acceptable financial returns and bankability. However, it also shows that the need for short concession periods may call for a public contribution to the initial funding to make the project more attractive to private investors. Practical implications – This case study is a useful guideline for governments and promoters to using the PF arrangement to fund energy efficiency investments in urban settings. It helps designing an appropriate PF scheme and understanding the advantages of PF to reduce risk and, consequently, increase the debt leverage and profitability of energy efficiency projects. Originality/value – This paper contributes to bridging the gap about the lack of works addressing the implementation of the PF mechanism in the energy efficiency sector in urban areas. The importance of this paper is also associated with the shortage of traditional public finance faced by many cities that forces to seek for alternate forms of financing.

scholarly journals A new clustering and visualization method to evaluate urban energy planning scenarios

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Torabi Moghadam ◽  
Silvia Coccolo ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani ◽  
Patrizia Lombardi ◽  
Jean Louis Scartezzini ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Transition Strategies ◽  
Urban Energy ◽  
The City

The spatial visualization is a very useful tool to help decision-makers in the urban planning process to create future energy transition strategies, implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in the context of sustainable cities. Statistical methods are often used to understand the driving parameters of energy consumption but rarely used to evaluate future urban renovation scenarios. Simulating whole cities using energy demand softwares can be very extensive in terms of computer resources and data collection. A new methodology, using city archetypes is proposed, here, to simulate the energy consumption of urban areas including urban energy planning scenarios. The objective of this paper is to present an innovative solution for the computation and visualization of energy saving at the city scale.The energy demand of cities, as well as the micro-climatic conditions, are calculated by using a simplified 3D model designed as function of the city urban geometrical and physical characteristics. Data are extracted from a GIS database that was used in a previous study. In this paper, we showed how the number of buildings to be simulated can be drastically reduced without affecting the accuracy of the results. This model is then used to evaluate the influence of two set of renovation solutions. The energy consumption are then integrated back in the GIS to identify the areas in the city where refurbishment works are needed more rapidly. The city of Settimo Torinese (Italy) is used as a demonstrator for the proposed methodology, which can be applied to all cities worldwide with limited amount of information.

scholarly journals Urban energy performance calculation based on EPBD standards. GIS4ENER tool

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gema Hernandez-Moral ◽  
◽  
Víctor Iván Serna-Gonzalez ◽  
Francisco Javier Miguel Herrero ◽  
César Valmaseda-Tranque
Keyword(s):  
Energy Demand ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Local Scale ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Energy Planning ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Urban Energy ◽  
Performance Calculation

Climate change will have a strong impact on urban settings, which will also represent one of the major challenges (world’s urban population is expected to double by 2050, EU buildings consume 40% final energy and generate 36% CO2 emissions). A plethora of initiatives address this challenge by stressing the underlying necessity of thinking globally but acting locally. This entails the inclusion of a varied set of decision-makers acting at different scales and needing robust, comprehensive and comparable information that can support them in their energy planning process. To this end, this paper presents the GIS4ENER tool to support energy planners at different scales by proposing a bottom-up approach towards the calculation of energy demand and consumption at local scale that can be aggregated to support other decision-making scales. It is based on three main pillars: the exploitation of publicly available data (such as Open Street Maps, Building Stock Observatory or TABULA), the implementation of standardised methods to calculate energy (in particular the ISO52000 family) and the use of Geographic Information Systems to represent and facilitate the understanding of results, and their aggregation. The paper presents the context, main differences with other approaches and results of the tool in Osimo (IT).

Energy foresight, scenarios and sustainable energy policy in Brazil

foresight ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 535-550 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathaniel Horner ◽  
Antonio Geraldo de Paula Oliveira ◽  
Richard Silberglitt ◽  
Marcelo Khaled Poppe ◽  
Bárbara Bressan Rocha
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Policy ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Carbon Efficiency ◽  
Specific Policy ◽  
Ghg Reduction ◽  
Energy History ◽  
Carbon Performance

Purpose This paper aims to use quantitative metrics to chart the unique history leading to Brazil’s leadership in renewable energy and identifies a set of meta-scenarios that define possible future carbon performance. These meta-scenarios provide a context for discussing specific energy policy implications both at the national scale and from the perspective of Brazil’s urban centres. Design/methodology/approach The paper defines and uses three metrics – energy efficiency, decarbonisation and carbon efficiency – to plot both Brazil’s historic energy pathway and a set of future energy scenarios put forth by various national and international energy agencies. The authors then use a meta-scenario approach to group these alternate pathways, identifying specific policy levers associated with the realisation of each. Findings The authors identify plausible policy changes that will help move Brazil off a current trajectory of stagnated energy performance to a “greener” scenario in which carbon efficiency improves even as Brazil’s economic growth continues. Such policies include energy efficiency programmes and continued expansion of the country’s already extensive hydropower and biomass capacity. Adoption of policies that would put Brazil on a more aggressive path towards a global sustainability scenario currently seems impractical. Originality/value This paper brings a standardized set of metrics to bear on Brazil’s unique energy history, which in turn helps identify specific policy impacts for continued GHG reduction in Brazil’s future from national and urban perspectives.

scholarly journals Impacts of Microclimate Conditions on the Energy Performance of Buildings in Urban Areas

Buildings ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (8) ◽  
pp. 189 ◽  
Author(s):  
Javanroodi ◽  
M.Nik
Keyword(s):  
Urban Areas ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Urban Morphology ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
Architectural Form ◽  
Energy Performance Of Buildings ◽  
Microclimate Conditions ◽  
The Impact

Urbanization trends have changed the morphology of cities in the past decades. Complex urban areas with wide variations in built density, layout typology, and architectural form have resulted in more complicated microclimate conditions. Microclimate conditions affect the energy performance of buildings and bioclimatic design strategies as well as a high number of engineering applications. However, commercial energy simulation engines that utilize widely-available mesoscale weather data tend to underestimate these impacts. These weather files, which represent typical weather conditions at a location, are mostly based on long-term metrological observations and fail to consider extreme conditions in their calculation. This paper aims to evaluate the impacts of hourly microclimate data in typical and extreme climate conditions on the energy performance of an office building in two different urban areas. Results showed that the urban morphology can reduce the wind speed by 27% and amplify air temperature by more than 14%. Using microclimate data, the calculated outside surface temperature, operating temperature and total energy demand of buildings were notably different to those obtained using typical regional climate model (RCM)–climate data or available weather files (Typical Meteorological Year or TMY), i.e., by 61%, 7%, and 21%, respectively. The difference in the hourly peak demand during extreme weather conditions was around 13%. The impact of urban density and the final height of buildings on the results are discussed at the end of the paper.

The energy efficiency and carbon footprint of temporary homes: a case study from Japan

2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 326-343 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Kuittinen ◽  
Atsushi Takano
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Carbon Footprint ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Tohoku Earthquake ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Refugee Camps ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Proper Design

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the energy efficiency and life cycle carbon footprint of temporary homes in Japan after the Great Eastern Tohoku Earthquake in 2011. Design/methodology/approach An energy simulation and life cycle assessment have been done for three alternative shelter models: prefabricated shelters, wooden log shelters and sea container shelters. Findings Shelter materials have a very high share of life cycle emissions because the use period of temporary homes is short. Wooden shelters perform best in the comparison. The clustering of shelters into longer buildings or on top of each other increases their energy efficiency considerably. Sea containers piled on top of each other have superb energy performance compared to other models, and they consume even less energy per household than the national average. However, there are several gaps of knowledge in the environmental assessment of temporary homes and field data from refugee camps should be collected as part of camp management. Originality/value The findings exemplify the impacts of the proper design of temporary homes for mitigating their energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions.

Measuring electric energy efficiency in Portuguese households

2015 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 407-422 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Weyman-Jones ◽  
Júlia Mendonça Boucinha ◽  
Catarina Feteira Inácio
Keyword(s):  
Time Series ◽  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Demand ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Electric Energy ◽  
Electrical Energy ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Content Type

Purpose – There is a great interest from the European Union in measuring the efficiency of energy use in households, and this is an area where EDP has done research in both data collection and methodology. This paper reports on a survey of electric energy use in Portuguese households, and reviews and extends the analysis of how efficiently households use electrical energy. The purpose of this paper is to evaluate household electrical energy efficiency in different regions using econometric analysis of the survey data. In addition, the same methodology was applied to a time-series data set, to evaluate recent developments in energy efficiency. Design/methodology/approach – The paper describes the application to Portuguese households of a new approach to evaluate energy efficiency, developed by Filippini and Hunt (2011, 2012) in which an econometric energy demand model was estimated to control for exogenous variables determining energy demand. The variation in energy efficiency over time and space could then be estimated by applying econometric efficiency analysis to determine the variation in energy efficiency. Findings – The results obtained allowed the identification of priority regions and consumer bands to reduce inefficiency in electricity consumption. The time-series data set shows that the expected electricity savings from the efficiency measures recently introduced by official authorities were fully realized. Research limitations/implications – This approach gives some guidance on how to introduce electricity saving measures in a more cost effective way. Originality/value – This paper outlines a new procedure for developing useful tools for modelling energy efficiency.

scholarly journals ENERGY RETROFITS FOR IMPROVING ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN BUILDINGS: A REVIEW OF HVAC AND LIGHTING SYSTEMS

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.R. Amjath ◽  
◽  
H. Chandanie ◽  
S.D.I.A. Amarasinghe ◽  
◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Implementation Process ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Energy Auditing ◽  
Lighting Systems ◽  
Effective Decision Making ◽  
And Performance

It has been observed that inefficient buildings consume three to five times more energy than efficient buildings. Subsequently, improving the Energy Efficiency (EE) of existing buildings, which account for a significant portion of the energy consumption of the building sector, has become a top priority. Also, Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) and lighting systems typically account for three-quarters of a building's energy consumption. Hence, focus on the energy efficiency improvements associated with these subsystems is entailed to optimise the energy use of buildings in comparison to other energy consumers. Energy Retrofit (ER) is defined as the main approach in improving the energy efficiency of buildings to achieve energy reduction goals. Nevertheless, there is a general lack of awareness regarding ER. Thus, the purpose of this article is to bridge this research gap by critically reviewing the applicable literature on ER. The paper first analysed the role of retrofits in buildings concerning optimising energy performance. The paper also discusses the implementation process of ER, which includes five steps viz. pre-retrofit survey, energy auditing, and performance assessment, identification of suitable and feasible retrofit options, site implementation and commissioning, and validation and verification. Further, different types of ER applicable to HVAC and lighting systems are discussed. In their endeavor to enhance the EE of existing buildings, practitioners could apply the findings of this study, as a basis to understand the available ER types and as a measure to gauge the efficiency of existing buildings, which will facilitate effective decision-making.

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