scholarly journals Life Cycle GHG Emissions of Residential Buildings in Humid Subtropical and Tropical Climates: Systematic Review and Analysis

Buildings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Daniel Satola ◽  
Martin Röck ◽  
Aoife Houlihan-Wiberg ◽  
Arild Gustavsen
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Cycle Performance ◽  
Tropical Climates ◽  
Building Life Cycle ◽  
Total Life

Improving the environmental life cycle performance of buildings by focusing on the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions along the building life cycle is considered a crucial step in achieving global climate targets. This paper provides a systematic review and analysis of 75 residential case studies in humid subtropical and tropical climates. The study investigates GHG emissions across the building life cycle, i.e., it analyses both embodied and operational GHG emissions. Furthermore, the influence of various parameters, such as building location, typology, construction materials and energy performance, as well as methodological aspects are investigated. Through comparative analysis, the study identifies promising design strategies for reducing life cycle-related GHG emissions of buildings operating in subtropical and tropical climate zones. The results show that life cycle GHG emissions in the analysed studies are mostly dominated by operational emissions and are the highest for energy-intensive multi-family buildings. Buildings following low or net-zero energy performance targets show potential reductions of 50–80% for total life cycle GHG emissions, compared to buildings with conventional energy performance. Implementation of on-site photovoltaic (PV) systems provides the highest reduction potential for both operational and total life cycle GHG emissions, with potential reductions of 92% to 100% and 48% to 66%, respectively. Strategies related to increased use of timber and other bio-based materials present the highest potential for reduction of embodied GHG emissions, with reductions of 9% to 73%.

scholarly journals Comparison of wooden and conventional houses sustainability: Increasing application of modified wood in R. of Macedonia

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (3 Part B) ◽  
pp. 1943-1955
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Petrovski ◽  
Jelena Ivanovic-Sekularac ◽  
Nenad Sekularac
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Construction Industry ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Wood Products ◽  
Conventional Concrete ◽  
The Republic

The residential sector in Republic of North Macedonia, situated in south-east Europe, is responsible for the consumption of significant amounts of resources and for the production of large amount of emissions and waste. The increased application of wood products can substantially improve these conditions and contribute towards increasing the sustainability in the construction industry and the creation of sustainable homes. The contribution of this paper is the simulation of four different alternatives of residential buildings in the Republic of North Macedonia, evaluated in terms of energy performance and life-cycle assessment for the "cradle to gate" phase. The results of this study revealed that by replacing conventional concrete and masonry constructions with wooden constructions in low-rise family houses, the carbon emissions can be reduced up to 145%. The contribution of this paper is the simulation and analysis of the energy performance by using building performance simulation tools and life-cycle assessment of a residential building and its optimization through several models. The results give significant insight on the influence that the different construction materials have on the environment and buildings performance. Also, the research enables stimulation of the construction industry in utilizing wooden structures and delivering legislation that could increase their use. These actions would provide means for the development of sustainable buildings, neighborhoods and sustainable development of the Republic of North Macedonia.

scholarly journals Strategies to Improve the Energy Performance of Buildings: A Review of Their Life Cycle Impact

Buildings ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 105 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia MIRABELLA ◽  
Martin RÖCK ◽  
Marcella Ruschi Mendes SAADE ◽  
Carolin SPIRINCKX ◽  
Marc BOSMANS ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Operational Energy

Globally, the building sector is responsible for more than 40% of energy use and it contributes approximately 30% of the global Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. This high contribution stimulates research and policies to reduce the operational energy use and related GHG emissions of buildings. However, the environmental impacts of buildings can extend wide beyond the operational phase, and the portion of impacts related to the embodied energy of the building becomes relatively more important in low energy buildings. Therefore, the goal of the research is gaining insights into the environmental impacts of various building strategies for energy efficiency requirements compared to the life cycle environmental impacts of the whole building. The goal is to detect and investigate existing trade-offs in current approaches and solutions proposed by the research community. A literature review is driven by six fundamental and specific research questions (RQs), and performed based on two main tasks: (i) selection of literature studies, and (ii) critical analysis of the selected studies in line with the RQs. A final sample of 59 papers and 178 case studies has been collected, and key criteria are systematically analysed in a matrix. The study reveals that the high heterogeneity of the case studies makes it difficult to compare these in a straightforward way, but it allows to provide an overview of current methodological challenges and research gaps. Furthermore, the most complete studies provide valuable insights in the environmental benefits of the identified energy performance strategies over the building life cycle, but also shows the risk of burden shifting if only operational energy use is focused on, or when a limited number of environmental impact categories are assessed.

scholarly journals A Comparison of Life Cycle Energy and Carbon Impacts for Passive Detached Accessory Dwelling Units and Their Design Implications

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deva Siva Veylan
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Performance Metrics ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Design Standards ◽  
Passive House ◽  
Accessory Dwelling Units ◽  
Passive Design ◽  
House Size

Detached accessory dwelling units are a building typology that, when built to passive design standards, can help reduce GHG emissions while addressing the socioeconomic pressures facing many housing markets. Energy performance metrics like those used in passive design standards are based on per unit of floor area and lead to a size-bias against smaller housing typologies. A life cycle assessment of cost-optimal passive house sizes ranging from 230 m² (2,500 ft²) to 30 m² (300 ft²) is performed to understand their total life cycle energy use and GHG emissions implications. Additionally, an analysis using BEopt examines operational energy use for 10 cost-optimal passive house sizes ranging from 230 m² (2,500 ft²) to 30 m² (300 ft²) across all 17 climate zones and examines how cost-optimal passive design changes with house size. The results show that per-occupant energy use and GHG emissions are similar or better for small house sizes and that cost-optimal passive design does not change significantly with house size.

Life cycle performance of Cross Laminated Timber mid-rise residential buildings in Australia

2020 ◽  
Vol 223 ◽  
pp. 110091 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amitha Jayalath ◽  
Satheeskumar Navaratnam ◽  
Tuan Ngo ◽  
Priyan Mendis ◽  
Nick Hewson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Cycle Performance ◽  
Cross Laminated Timber

Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Life Cycle of CdTe Photovoltaics

2005 ◽  
Vol 895 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasilis Fthenakis ◽  
Hyung Chul Kim
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Ground Level ◽  
Solar Irradiation ◽  
Production Plant ◽  
Energy Payback ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S ◽  
Total Life

AbstractThe life cycle of the thin film CdTe PV modules in the U.S. have been investigated based on materials and energy inventories for a commercial 25 MW/yr production plant. The energy payback times (EPBT) of these modules are 0.75 years and the GHG emissions are 18 gCO2-eq/kWh for average U.S. solar irradiation conditions. Adding the impact of an optimized ground-level balance of system (BOS), result in a total EPBT of 1.2 years and total life-cycle GHG emissions of 24 gCO2-eq/kWh.

scholarly journals The applicability of different energy performance calculation methods for building life cycle environmental optimization

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Kiss ◽  
ZS. Szalay
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Computational Time ◽  
Calculation Methods ◽  
Apartment House ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Operational Energy ◽  
Time Accuracy ◽  
Building Life Cycle

Building life cycle assessment is getting more and more attention within the topic of environmental impact caused by the built environment. Although more and more research focus on the embodied impact of buildings, the investigation of the operational energy use still needs attention. The majority of the building stock still does not comply with the nearly zero energy requirements. Also, in case of retrofitting, when most of the embodied impact is already spent on the existing structures (and so immutable), the importance of the operational energy rises. There are several methods to calculate the energy performance of buildings covering the range from simplified seasonal methods to detailed hourly energy simulations. Not only the accuracy of the calculations, but the computational time can be significantly different within the methods. The latter is especially important in case of optimization, when there is limited time to perform one calculation. Our research shows that the use of different calculation techniques can lead to different optima for environmental impacts in case of retrofitting. In this paper we compare these calculation methods with focus on computational time, accuracy and applicability to environmental optimization of buildings. We present the results in a case study of the retrofitting of a middle-sized apartment house in Hungary.

scholarly journals Importance of building services in ecological building assessments

2019 ◽  
Vol 111 ◽  
pp. 03061 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Lambertz ◽  
Sebastian Theißen ◽  
Jannick Höper ◽  
Reinhard Wimmer
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Assessment ◽  
Life Cycle ◽  
Environmental Impacts ◽  
Renewable Energy Sources ◽  
Green Building ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Simplified Approach ◽  
Ecological Requirements ◽  
Building Information ◽  
Building Life Cycle

The new Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2018 and the GebäudeEnergieGesetz (GEG) tightened the requirements for energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources in buildings at EU and national levels. Environmental impacts from manufacturing, dismantling and recycling of buildings are not taken into account. Green Building Certification Systems, such as the DGNB or BNB systems, are therefore the only ones that (voluntarily) set holistic, ecological requirements for buildings. Based on a Whole-Building Life Cycle Assessment, the entire building life cycle and its environmental effects are evaluated. While building services in this context are usually only included in such a simplified approach, the full scope of the produced environmental impacts are underestimated and misjudged for the reduction of emissions and other environmental impacts. This publication uses the results of a life cycle assessment of a typical office building (in Germany) to show the amount of influence building services have on environmental impacts of buildings. Furthermore the study shows an approach how the very high pro-curement and calculation effort of LCA can be reduced by linking the Building Information Modelling (BIM) Method and LCA models to enable a significantly more efficient and easier calculation process, es-pecially for building services.

scholarly journals Carbon Benchmark for Czech Residential Buildings Based on Climate Goals Set by the Paris Agreement for 2030

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (21) ◽  
pp. 6085 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Pálenský ◽  
Antonín Lupíšek
Keyword(s):  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Light Emitting Diode ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Ghg Emissions ◽  
Residential Building ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Paris Agreement ◽  
Ghg Emission ◽  
Standard Design ◽  
Emission Limit

This paper deals with the problem that actual building regulations do not reflect the climate targets set by the Paris Agreement. To address this, a benchmark was developed for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of buildings on the basis of the Emissions Gap Report. We first applied an equal allocation of the GHG emission limit for 2030 among the forecasted population to calculate a virtual personal GHG emission limit. We took a proportion of this personal limit for the purpose of housing and extrapolated it for the whole building based on the number of occupants. We also undertook a case study of an actual multifamily residential building and compared its standard design to the benchmark using a simplified life cycle assessment (LCA) method in line with the national SBToolCZ method. The results showed that the assessed residential house exceeded the emission requirement by a factor of 2.5. Based on the assessment, six sets of saving measures were proposed to reduce the operational and embodied GHG emissions. The saving measures included change in temperature zoning, improvement of the U-values of the building envelope, exchange of construction materials for reduced embodied GHG emissions, exchange of heat source for biomass boiler, introduction of light-emitting diode (LED) lighting, use of mechanical ventilation with heat recovery, addition of vacuum solar collectors, and the addition of photovoltaic (PV) panels. Finally, the variants were compared and their suitability in the Czech conditions was examined.

scholarly journals Application of Life Cycle Energy Assessment in Residential Buildings: A Critical Review of Recent Trends

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 351 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hossein Omrany ◽  
Veronica Soebarto ◽  
Ehsan Sharifi ◽  
Ali Soltani
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Energy Consumption ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Residential Buildings ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Embodied Energy ◽  
System Boundary ◽  
Energy Assessment ◽  
Boundary Definition

Residential buildings are responsible for a considerable portion of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Correspondingly, many attempts have been made across the world to minimize energy consumption in this sector via regulations and building codes. The focus of these regulations has mainly been on reducing operational energy use, whereas the impacts of buildings’ embodied energy are frequently excluded. In recent years, there has been a growing interest in analyzing the energy performance of buildings via a life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) approach. The increasing amount of research has however caused the issue of a variation in results presented by LCEA studies, in which apparently similar case studies exhibited different results. This paper aims to identify the main sources of variation in LCEA studies by critically analyzing 26 studies representing 86 cases in 12 countries. The findings indicate that the current trend of LCEA application in residential buildings suffers from significant inaccuracy accruing from incomplete definitions of the system boundary, in tandem with the lack of consensus on measurements of operational and embodied energies. The findings call for a comprehensive framework through which system boundary definition for calculations of embodied and operational energies can be standardized.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document