scholarly journals Modeling Thermal Interactions between Buildings in an Urban Context

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 2382
Author(s):  
Xuan Luo ◽  
Tianzhen Hong ◽  
Yu-Hang Tang

Thermal interactions through longwave radiation exchange between buildings, especially in a dense urban environment, can strongly influence a building’s energy use and environmental impact. However, these interactions are either neglected or oversimplified in urban building energy modeling. We developed a new feature in EnergyPlus to explicitly consider this term in the surface heat balance calculations and developed an algorithm to batch calculating the surrounding surfaces’ view factors using a ray-tracing technique. We conducted a case study with a district in the Chicago downtown area to evaluate the longwave radiant heat exchange effects between urban buildings. Results show that the impact of the longwave radiant effects on annual energy use ranges from 0.1% to 3.3% increase for cooling and 0.3% to 3.6% decrease for heating, varying among individual buildings. At the district level, the total energy demand increases by 1.39% for cooling and decreases 0.45% for heating. We also observe the longwave radiation can increase the exterior surface temperature by up to 10 °C for certain exterior surfaces. These findings justify a detailed and accurate way to consider the thermal interactions between buildings in an urban context to inform urban planning and design.

Energies ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1869 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandre Lucas ◽  
Giuseppe Prettico ◽  
Marco Flammini ◽  
Evangelos Kotsakis ◽  
Gianluca Fulli ◽  
...  

Electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure rollout is well under way in several power systems, namely North America, Japan, Europe, and China. In order to support EV charging infrastructures design and operation, little attempt has been made to develop indicator-based methods characterising such networks across different regions. This study defines an assessment methodology, composed by eight indicators, allowing a comparison among EV public charging infrastructures. The proposed indicators capture the following: energy demand from EVs, energy use intensity, charger’s intensity distribution, the use time ratios, energy use ratios, the nearest neighbour distance between chargers and availability, the total service ratio, and the carbon intensity as an environmental impact indicator. We apply the methodology to a dataset from ElaadNL, a reference smart charging provider in The Netherlands, using open source geographic information system (GIS) and R software. The dataset reveals higher energy intensity in six urban areas and that 50% of energy supplied comes from 19.6% of chargers. Correlations of spatial density are strong and nearest neighbouring distances range from 1101 to 9462 m. Use time and energy use ratios are 11.21% and 3.56%. The average carbon intensity is 4.44 gCO2eq/MJ. Finally, the indicators are used to assess the impact of relevant public policies on the EV charging infrastructure use and roll-out.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-46
Author(s):  
Gulshan Maqbool ◽  
Zulqarnain Haider

Energy-saving behaviors are defined as the daily and habitual practices of households that focus on specific reductions in energy use. The main objective of this research was to estimate the impact of the energy-saving behavior of individuals on energy demand and to estimate the impact of factors affections the adoption of energy-saving techniques. The study is based on primary data which is collected through questionnaires. The data were collected from rural and urban households in four tehsils of district Sargodha, Pakistan. The Ordinary Least Square technique was to describe the relationship between electricity consumption and different explanatory variables such as gender, age, region, family members, dwelling area, income, energy consumption awareness, external influencing factors, and household saving behavior. Job status is negative and significant, qualification variable in this study is insignificant, marital status is negatively associated with energy consumption and significant, size of a household has a significant effect on the model.  The monthly income of the household head has a positive and significant effect. Energy consumption awareness is significantly negative. External influencing factors are insignificant. Saving behavior in electronic appliances is significantly negative to energy consumption. Government should put efforts to aware the public about energy-saving measures through an awareness campaign using electronic media like mobile and email. Energy-saving appliances should be a sale at cheap prices. The household should have to change its habitual behavior.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (13) ◽  
pp. 5347
Author(s):  
José Luis Fuentes-Bargues ◽  
José-Luis Vivancos ◽  
Pablo Ferrer-Gisbert ◽  
Miguel Ángel Gimeno-Guillem

The design of near zero energy offices is a priority, which involves looking to achieve designs which minimise energy consumption and balance energy requirements with an increase in the installation and consumption of renewable energy. In light of this, some authors have used computer software to achieve simulations of the energy behaviour of buildings. Other studies based on regulatory systems which classify and label energy use also generally make their assessments through the use of software. In Spain, there is an authorised procedure for certifying the energy performance of buildings, and software (LIDER-CALENER unified tool) which is used to demonstrate compliance of the performance of buildings both from the point of view of energy demand and energy consumption. The aim of this study is to analyse the energy behaviour of an office building and the variability of the same using the software in terms of the following variables: climate zone, building orientation and certain surrounding wall types and encasements typical of this type of construction.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 3380
Author(s):  
Marta Gangolells ◽  
Miquel Casals ◽  
Marcel Macarulla ◽  
Núria Forcada

This paper analyzes the impact of an innovative approach based on gamification to promote reduced energy consumption in social housing. The game was developed and validated under the auspices of the EU-funded project EnerGAware-Energy Game for Awareness of energy efficiency in social housing communities in an affordable housing pilot located in Plymouth (United Kingdom). The results showed that the future exploitation of the game holds important energy- and emissions-saving potential. Assuming that the game is distributed freely by European energy providers to their domestic end-users, the game was found to be able to save more than 48.9 secondary terawatt-hours per year (TWhs) and 18.8 million tons of CO2e annually, contributing up to around 8% to the target set for the European buildings sector to keep global warming under 2 °C. The results also showed that the game is highly feasible from the energy point of view, even when we consider the energy consumed upstream, due to its low cumulative energy demand and its potential for household energy reduction. The results of this research provide helpful information for private and public stakeholders, as they contribute to determining the sustainability of promoting energy saving through gaming.


2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Yasmin Fathy ◽  
Mona Jaber ◽  
Zunaira Nadeem

The Internet of Things (IoT) is revolutionising how energy is delivered from energy producers and used throughout residential households. Optimising the residential energy consumption is a crucial step toward having greener and sustainable energy production. Such optimisation requires a household-centric energy management system as opposed to a one-rule-fits all approach. In this paper, we propose a data-driven multi-layer digital twin of the energy system that aims to mirror households’ actual energy consumption in the form of a household digital twin (HDT). When linked to the energy production digital twin (EDT), HDT empowers the household-centric energy optimisation model to achieve the desired efficiency in energy use. The model intends to improve the efficiency of energy production by flattening the daily energy demand levels. This is done by collaboratively reorganising the energy consumption patterns of residential homes to avoid peak demands whilst accommodating the resident needs and reducing their energy costs. Indeed, our system incorporates the first HDT model to gauge the impact of various modifications on the household energy bill and, subsequently, on energy production. The proposed energy system is applied to a real-world IoT dataset that spans over two years and covers seventeen households. Our conducted experiments show that the model effectively flattened the collective energy demand by 20.9% on synthetic data and 20.4% on a real dataset. At the same time, the average energy cost per household was reduced by 10.7% for the synthetic data and 17.7% for the real dataset.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hyunji Im ◽  
Yunsoung Kim

The electrification of cooking methods in Korea was investigated to understand the impact of different cooking methods on energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the building sector. Annual household cooking energy consumption was compared for the Nowon Energy Zero House Project, a zero-energy housing complex using induction cooktops, and a sample of households that used natural gas for cooking. The results showed that the former consumed less calories (a difference of 2.2 times) and emitted less GHGs (a difference of 2.6 times) compared to gas cooking households. A countrywide scenario analysis was conducted by combining the share of electric cooking households with the projected power generation mix in 2030. Under the 2030 Policy scenario for power generation, and with an electricity cooking share of 20%, cooking-related GHG emissions were projected to be 3.79 million t CO2/year; 3.8% (150,000 t CO2/year) lower than those in the present day, despite a total population increase. The electrification of cooking methods in Korea has the potential to reduce both the energy demand of the building sector and GHG emissions, in synergy with the decarbonization of the power generation sector.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Wang ◽  
Yunyang Ye ◽  
Wangda Zuo ◽  
Joshua New ◽  
Amy Rose

The goal of this research is to assist in quantifying the impact of enhanced occupancy information on the accuracy of building energy models compared to actual 15-minute data. Through gridded population data extraction and cross-reference with building location and area information, daytime and nighttime occupant density data that could be leveraged to modify the occupancy schedules are generated. This work will improve the ability to quantitatively estimate and empirically validate reductions in energy use intensity of individual buildings within a large area. Further, this work will test the value for sources of occupancy data to improve utility-scale models and create measures to assess the energy, demand, emissions, and cost-saving opportunities for a utility. This paper provides the methodology and detailed techniques that are used to achieve this aim.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 5164
Author(s):  
Tiziano Dalla Mora ◽  
Lorenzo Teso ◽  
Laura Carnieletto ◽  
Angelo Zarrella ◽  
Piercarlo Romagnoni

The residential building stock represents one of the major players in energy use and greenhouse gas emissions; thus, it is fundamental to reduce the energy used. Simulation tools are becoming more and more accurate in compliance with the new requirements both at the single-building and at the district scale, although they are not affordable by non-specialist users such as policymakers. The research concerns the evaluation of the energy demand for space heating for a historical district that is representative of the Italian building stock. The work compares dynamic and specialist-oriented urban scale tools such as Energy Urban Resistance Capacitance Approach (EUReCA) and City Energy Analyst (CEA)) as well as a quasi-steady-state calculation method (Excel spreadsheet), which is more affordable for non-specialist users. The work was carried out to assess the possible deviation of the results between the dynamic and quasi-steady-state calculation methods, as well as to identify any limits and opportunities in the application of the latter procedure, which is currently the official national calculation tool for the implementation of Directive 2010/31/EU. The study shows how the quasi-steady-state method predicts a reliable building energy demand, in line with the results obtained by the two dynamic tools, when considering only geometry and infiltrations as input. However, the limits of the quasi-steady-state method emerge when introducing internal loads, significantly underestimating the energy demand compared to CEA and EUReCA simulations. The results underline the potential application of the quasi-steady-state method to predict energy demand, although dynamics tools are more reliable but far more complex. Major findings through two methods concern the impact of solar heat gains on the overall heating demand at both the single building and the district scale. The different results between the tools provided evidence of a gap in the use of the simplest tool and demonstrated the accuracy and reliability of the proposed approach with a lower computational effort.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 65-73
Author(s):  
Agus Sugiyono ◽  
Joko Santosa ◽  
Adiarso ◽  
Edi Hilmawan

In order to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, the government issued a large-scale social restriction policy (PSBB). The policy in the form of restrictions on social activities will limit economic activity which ultimately has an impact on decreasing energy demand. This PSBB policy is challenge in implementing a national energy management plan, and might causes some of the energy planning targets not to be achieved. To analyze the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on national energy demand, an energy model was created using LEAP software. LEAP is a model for comprehensive energy planning from energy resources to energy use based on an accounting system. For the purposes of analysis, LEAP requires quite detailed data, in the form of socioeconomic data, energy data, and community activity data due to social restrictions. In this paper, the results of energy modeling simulation are discussed in terms of energy demand based on the scenario of no pandemic or bussiness as usual (BAU) and three pandemic scenarios, namely: optimistic (OPT), moderate (MOD), and pessimistic (PES) scenarios. Energy demand in 2020 is predicted to decrease by 10.7% (OPT scenario), 15.3% (MOD scenario), and 20.0% (PES scenario) compared to the BAU scenario. The model can still be further developed to analyze the impact, both on the overall of demand side and energy supply side and also environmental aspects.


2017 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 31-41
Author(s):  
Marta Skiba ◽  
Natalia Rzeszowska

Abstract One of the five far-reaching goals of the European Union is climate change and sustainable energy use. The first step in the implementation of this task is to reduce energy demand in buildings to a minimum by 2021, and in the case of public buildings by 2019. This article analyses the possibility of improving energy efficiency in public buildings, the relationship between particular indicators of the demand for usable energy (UE), final energy (FE) and primary energy (PE) in buildings and the impact of these indicators on the assessment of energy efficiency in public buildings, based on 5 variants of extensive thermal renovation of a school building. The analysis of the abovementioned variants confirms that the thermal renovation of merely the outer envelope of the building is insufficient and requires the use of additional energy sources, for example RES. Moreover, each indicator of energy demand in the building plays a key role in assessing the energy efficiency of the building. For this reason it is important to analyze each of them individually, as well as the dependencies between them.


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