scholarly journals Establishment of Key Performance Indicators for Green Building Operations Monitoring—An Application to China Case Study

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 976 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinqiu Li ◽  
Qingqin Wang ◽  
Hao Zhou

Released green building evaluation standards for operation stage include a huge number of indicators, which are very comprehensive and systematic. However, the indicators of these standards are very complicated and a large amount of time and manpower are consumed for their evaluation. To evaluate the operational performance of green buildings more practically and efficiently, some studies collect the operational data for part of the indicators (mainly focusing on building energy performance, indoor environmental quality or occupant satisfaction), which are too rough to evaluate the performance of green building. This paper proposed a total of 27 key performance indicators (KPIs) for green building operations monitoring. The number of proposed indicators is much fewer than the evaluation standards, as well as suitable for long-term monitoring, which can dramatically reduce evaluation time and cost. On the other hand, the indicators involving Outdoor environmental quality, Indoor environmental quality, HVAC system, P&D system, Renewable energy system, Total resource consumption and User behavior, which are more comprehensive and systematic than the conventional monitoring studies for operational performance of green building. Firstly, an indicators library for operations monitoring of green building was established based on relevant standards and literature review in this field. Secondly, “SMART” principle and Delphi method were adopted to select the key performance indicators for green building operations monitoring. Different background experts regarding green building industry were chosen to screen the most relevant, accessible and measurable indicators. Subsequently, two projects in China were selected for case study of key performance indicators proposed in this paper for green building operations monitoring to validate the feasibility and advancement.

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pedro Faria ◽  
Fernando Lezama ◽  
Zita Vale ◽  
Mahsa Khorram

AbstractWith the advent of the smart grid era, the electrical grid is becoming a complex network in which different technologies coexist to bring benefits to both customers and operators. This paper presents a methodology for analyzing Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), providing knowledge about the performance and efficiency of energy systems, focusing on the demand side. In the first stage of the methodology, the baseline KPIs are calculated. In the second stage, all KPIs are updated to be compared with the baseline ones. In fact, due to the dynamic nature of players in a smart grid, this methodology plays a crucial role in the performance assessment. Moreover, the proper definition and selection of KPIs is usually a challenging task since KPIs can be applied to evaluate diverse areas within a smart grid. Such areas include building energy efficiency, home communications, and smart metering deployment, just to mention a few. In the proposed methodology, the information obtained from a KPI can be driven to distinct aspects such as efficiency, environment, reliability, power quality, safety, security, or cost reduction. Through a case study from a real implementation of an energy system, we show how to assess energy consumption efficiency, thus improving energy management.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 8789
Author(s):  
Giovanni Bianco ◽  
Barbara Bonvini ◽  
Stefano Bracco ◽  
Federico Delfino ◽  
Paola Laiolo ◽  
...  

As reported in the “Clean energy for all Europeans package” set by the EU, a sustainable transition from fossil fuels towards cleaner energy is necessary to improve the quality of life of citizens and the livability in cities. The exploitation of renewable sources, the improvement of energy performance in buildings and the need for cutting-edge national energy and climate plans represent important and urgent topics to be faced in order to implement the sustainability concept in urban areas. In addition, the spread of polygeneration microgrids and the recent development of energy communities enable a massive installation of renewable power plants, high-performance small-size cogeneration units, and electrical storage systems; moreover, properly designed local energy production systems make it possible to optimize the exploitation of green energy sources and reduce both energy supply costs and emissions. In the present paper, a set of key performance indicators is introduced in order to evaluate and compare different energy communities both from a technical and environmental point of view. The proposed methodology was used in order to assess and compare two sites characterized by the presence of sustainable energy infrastructures: the Savona Campus of the University of Genoa in Italy, where a polygeneration microgrid has been in operation since 2014 and new technologies will be installed in the near future, and the SPEED2030 District, an urban area near the Campus where renewable energy power plants (solar and wind), cogeneration units fed by hydrogen and storage systems are planned to be installed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (11) ◽  
pp. 6304
Author(s):  
Raluca-Andreea Felseghi ◽  
Ioan Așchilean ◽  
Nicoleta Cobîrzan ◽  
Andrei Mircea Bolboacă ◽  
Maria Simona Raboaca

Alternative energy resources have a significant function in the performance and decarbonization of power engendering schemes in the building application domain. Additionally, “green buildings” play a special role in reducing energy consumption and minimizing CO2 emissions in the building sector. This research article analyzes the performance of alternative primary energy sources (sun and hydrogen) integrated into a hybrid photovoltaic panel/fuel cell system, and their optimal synergy to provide green energy for a green building. The study addresses the future hydrogen-based economy, which involves the supply of hydrogen as the fuel needed to provide fuel cell energy through a power distribution infrastructure. The objective of this research is to use fuel cells in this field and to investigate their use as a green building energy supply through a hybrid electricity generation system, which also uses photovoltaic panels to convert solar energy. The fuel cell hydrogen is supplied through a distribution network in which hydrogen production is outsourced and independent of the power generation system. The case study creates virtual operating conditions for this type of hybrid energy system and simulates its operation over a one-year period. The goal is to demonstrate the role and utility of fuel cells in virtual conditions by analyzing energy and economic performance indicators, as well as carbon dioxide emissions. The case study analyzes the optimal synergy between photovoltaic panels and fuel cells for the power supply of a green building. In the simulation, an optimally configured hybrid system supplies 100% of the energy to the green building while generating carbon dioxide emissions equal to 11.72% of the average value calculated for a conventional energy system providing similar energy to a standard residential building. Photovoltaic panels account for 32% of the required annual electricity production, and the fuel cells generate 68% of the total annual energy output of the system.


2015 ◽  
Vol 75 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ang Qiu Mei ◽  
Md Azree Othuman Mydin

This study was done to investigate the relationship between indoor environmental quality and prevalence of Sick Building Syndrome in six small offices inPenangIsland. Indoor environmental quality measurement was conducted according to relevant standards. There are totally Sixty workers were selected to participate in an electronic questionnaire survey. Questionnaire was used to record the comfort level of respondents in the case studies and level of sick building syndrome faced by respondents. Through indoor environmental quality measurement, it is found that most of the offices facing the lighting and noise problem. The result from the questionnaire shows that in overall, the occupants satisfy with their working environment in term of indoor environmental quality although the result also shows the opinions of occupants on dissatisfaction on certain indoor environmental parameter according to case study. The study also found that most of the occupants feel drowsy and fatigue when they work within the offices. Besides, due to the difference of the indoor environmental quality of the buildings, the occupants are suffered from different symptoms of the sick building syndrome.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 388
Author(s):  
Ilse Svensson de Jong

Measuring innovation is a challenging but essential task to improve business performance. To tackle this task, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used to measure and monitor innovation. The objective of this study is to explore how KPIs, designed for measuring innovation, are used in practice. To achieve this objective, the author draws upon literature on business performance in accounting and innovation, yet moves away from the functional view. Instead, the author focuses explicitly on how organizational members, through their use of KPIs in innovation, make sense of conflicting interpretations and integrate them into their practices. A qualitative in-depth case study was conducted at the innovation department of an organization in the process industry that operates production sites and sales organizations worldwide. In total, 28 interviews and complementary observations were undertaken at several organizational levels (multi-level). The empirical evidence suggests that strategic change, attributed to commoditization, affects the predetermined KPIs in use. Notably, these KPIs in innovation are used, despite their poor fit to innovation subject to commoditization. From a relational perspective, this study indicates that in innovation, KPIs are usually complemented by or supplemented with other information, as stand-alone KPIs exhibit a significant degree of incompleteness. In contrast to conventional studies in innovation and management accounting, this study explores the use of key performance indicators (KPIs) in innovation from an interpretative perspective. This perspective advances our understanding of the actual use of KPIs and uncovers the complexity of accounting and innovation, which involve numerous angles and organizational levels. Practically, the findings of this study will inform managers in innovation about the use of KPIs in innovation and the challenges individual organizational members face when using them. In innovation, KPIs appear to be subjective and used in unintended ways. Thus, understanding how KPIs are used in innovation is a game of reading between the lines, and these KPIs can be regarded as misfits.


2019 ◽  
Vol 887 ◽  
pp. 164-171
Author(s):  
Marija Marković ◽  
Ulrich Pont ◽  
Ardeshir Mahdavi

Energy performance calculations are stipulated by law in most European countries. Thereby, different calculation schemes have been developed in the past years in different countries. The physical processes in buildings were simplified in terms of normative calculation routines in most of these schemes. A major idea behind these simplifications was to enable different stakeholders (practitioners, engineers, and architects) to issue energy certificates without being simulation experts. Moreover, the simplifications needed to be described thoroughly in corresponding guidelines to ensure and facilitate the comparability of the energy performance of different buildings. However, neither of these objectives can be considered to be fully met. Regarding the former, the normative calculation procedures increased in complexity in the past years, so that the issuing of energy certificates requires not only the stakeholder’s expertise but also a comprehensive knowledge of the standards that form the calculation method. Regarding the latter, recent research efforts revealed that many guidelines do not fully cover every aspect of the calculation procedures and the assumptions regarding required input data. Thus, the comparability of energy certificates has to be strongly questioned, as a number of relevant calculation parameters are dependent on the interpretation of the corresponding issuer.Given this background, alternative approaches to building performance evaluation would be of interest. Previous approaches by different researchers suggested so called prescriptive indicators, which can be derived by basic building data (for instance, geometry and thermal quality of the building envelope components). This contribution is based on this concept. In the framework of a master thesis, a number of prescriptive indicators were considered. These indicators were derived for a set of sample buildings. In a parallel effort, energy certificates (encompassing Key Performance Indicators KPIs) were calculated for the sample buildings. It is clear that the prescriptive indicators cannot act as a 1:1 replacement for KPIs in terms of a numeric value. However, their usefulness can be expressed by the relation of the prescriptive indicator and the corresponding KPIs of a building. Thus, the results of the described calculation efforts were ranked. Subsequently, the lists of buildings ranked by the different indicators were compared in order to identify prescriptive indicators, which result in the same or at least similar ranking as the normative key performance indicators. Within this contribution, the suggested prescriptive indicators, the sample buildings, and the results of the analysis are presented and discussed.


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