scholarly journals Optimizing the selection of sustainability measures to minimize life-cycle cost of existing buildings

2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Moatassem Abdallah ◽  
Khaled El-Rayes ◽  
Liang Liu
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Optimization Model ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Building Life Cycle ◽  
Selection Of

Buildings have significant impacts on the environment and economy as they were reported by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in 2009 to account for 40% of the global energy consumption. Building owners are increasingly seeking to integrate sustainability and green measures in their buildings to minimize energy and water consumption as well as life-cycle cost. Due to the large number of feasiblecombinations of sustainability measures, decision makers are often faced with a challenging task that requires them to identify an optimal set of upgrade measures to minimize the building life-cycle cost. This paper presents a model for optimizing the selection of building upgrade measures to minimize the life-cycle cost of existing buildings while complying with owner-specified requirements for building operational performance and budget constraints. The optimization model accounts for initial upgrade cost, operational cost and saving, escalation in utility costs, maintenance cost, replacement cost, and salvage value of building fixtures and equipment, and renewable energy systems. A case study of a rest area building in the state of Illinois in the United States was analyzed to illustrate the unique capabilities of the developed optimization model. The main findings of this analysis illustrate the capabilities of the model in identifying optimal building upgrade measures to achieve the highest savings of building life-cycle cost within a user-specified upgrade budget; and generating practical and detailed recommendations on replacing building fixtures and equipment and installing renewable energy systems.

scholarly journals Selection of the Most Sustainable Renewable Energy System for Bozcaada Island: Wind vs. Photovoltaic

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 4098 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elif Oğuz ◽  
Ayşe Eylül Şentürk
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Production Process ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Energy Production ◽  
Economic Impacts ◽  
Unit Cost ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Photovoltaic Power

Energy production without destroying the environment has been one of the most crucial issues for people living in today’s world. In order to analyze whole environmental and/or economic impacts of the energy production process, life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) are widely used. In this study, two distinct renewable energy systems are assessed. First, a land-based wind farm, which has been operating in Bozcaada Island since 2000, is compared to a proposed solar photovoltaic power plant in terms of Energy Pay-Back Time (EPBT) periods and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and life cycle cost. The energy production process including the recycling phase evaluated “from cradle to grave” using GaBi software for both cases. All scenarios are compared by considering different impact categories such as global warming potential (GWP), acidification potential (AP), and eutrophication potential (EP). Following this, levelized unit cost to produce 1 MWh electricity (LUCE) is calculated for both systems. This study revealed that LCA and LCCA are useful and practical tools that help to determine drawbacks and benefits of different renewable energy systems considering their long-term environmental and economic impacts. Our findings show that onshore wind farms have a number of benefits than proposed photovoltaic power plants in terms of environmental and cost aspects.

scholarly journals Life Cycle Analysis of a Geothermal Power Plant: Comparison of the Environmental Performance with Other Renewable Energy Systems

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 2786 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Basosi ◽  
Roberto Bonciani ◽  
Dario Frosali ◽  
Giampaolo Manfrida ◽  
Maria Laura Parisi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Power Plant ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
Life Cycle Analysis ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Geothermal Power Plant ◽  
A Value ◽  
Geothermal Power

A life cycle analysis was performed for the assessment of the environmental performances of three existing Italian power plants of comparable nominal power operating with different sources of renewable energy: Geothermal, solar, and wind. Primary data were used for building the life cycle inventories. The results are characterized by employing a wide portfolio of environmental indicators employing the ReCiPe 2016 and the ILCD 2011 Midpoint+ methods; normalization and weighting are also applied using the ReCiPe 2016 method at the endpoint level. The midpoint results demonstrate a good eco-profile of the geothermal power plant compared to other renewable energy systems and a definite step forward over the performance of the national energy mix. The Eco-Point single score calculation showed that wind energy is the best technology with a value of 0.0012 Eco-points/kWh, a result in line with previously documented life cycle analysis studies. Nevertheless, the geothermal power plant achieved a value of 0.0177 Eco-points/kWh which is close to that calculated for the photovoltaic plant (0.0087 Eco-points/kWh) and much lower than the national energy mix one (0.1240 Eco-points/kWh). Also, a scenario analysis allowed for a critical discussion about potential improvements to the environmental performance of the geothermal power plant.

OPTIMIZING BUILDING UPGRADES TO MINIMIZE ENERGY AND WATER CONSUMPTION

2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moatassem Abdallah ◽  
Khaled El-Rayes ◽  
Caroline Clevenger
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Water Consumption ◽  
Optimization Model ◽  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Green Building ◽  
The United States ◽  
Simulation Software ◽  
Existing Buildings ◽  
Building Products

Building sector in the United States is responsible for 41% of energy consumption, 73% of electricity consumption, and 14% of water consumption. Energy and water consumption of buildings can be significantly reduced by identifying and implementing green building upgrade measures based on available budgets especially in aging buildings which represent 70% of existing buildings in the United States. This paper presents the development of an optimization model that is capable of identifying the optimal selection of building upgrade measures to minimize energy and water consumption of existing buildings while complying with limited upgrade budgets and building operational performance requirements. This optimization model is designed to estimate building energy consumption using energy simulation software packages, is integrated with databases of building products, and performs analysis of replacing existing building fixtures/equipment and installing renewable energy systems during optimization computations to identify the replacement of building products that minimizes energy and water consumption. The model is designed to provide detailed results for building owners, which include specifications for the recommended upgrade measures and their location in the building; required upgrade cost; expected energy and water, operational, and life-cycle cost savings; and expected payback period.

scholarly journals Optimization of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems for Power Generation: A Bibliometric Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 369-393
Author(s):  
Yamilet González Cusa ◽  
Jorge Laureano Moya Rodríguez ◽  
Silvio Alexandre Beisl Vieira de Melo ◽  
Ednildo Andrade Torres
Keyword(s):  
Power Generation ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Research Collaboration ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Energy Systems ◽  
The United States ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems ◽  
Hybrid Renewable Energy

The use of Hybrid Power Generation Systems through renewable sources has been gaining prominence, since it is a way to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels, contributing to the reduction of pollutant gas emissions to the environment. Due to the higher operational complexity, the multiplicity of options and constant improvement of these units, how to optimize these systems is still a subject of present studies. Considering the attention that this topic has received from the academic community, the challenges for mapping and identifying the relevant literature, this article provides a macroscopic view of the scientific literature on the Optimization of Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems (HRES) for energy generation, through analysis bibliometric. The research was developed using the Web of Science database, obtaining a total of 439 articles between 2010 and 2020, where the results were interpreted through the VOSviewer software. The results showed that the number of related publications is gradually increasing, with India as the leading country. The University of Malaya is the institution with a higher number of registers, with 14 entries. Most publications fit into the “Energy Fuels” category, with the magazines “Renewable Sustainable Energy Reviews” and “Renewable Energy” as the most influential in terms of the number of publications, as well as the United States and China are the countries with most research collaboration. Besides, the most cited articles and the recurrence and distribution of keywords indicate the future directions of research. In short, this study contributes valuable information to researchers on the topic.

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