scholarly journals Use of Insulation Based on Nanomaterials to Improve Energy Efficiency of Residential Buildings in a Hot Desert Climate

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 5266
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abdelrady ◽  
Mohamed Hssan Hassan Abdelhafez ◽  
Ayman Ragab

Building insulation based on nanomaterials is considered one of the most effective means of reducing energy consumption in the hot desert climate. The application of an energy-efficient insulation system can significantly decrease the energy consumed via a building’s air-conditioning system during the summer. Hence, building insulation has become an interesting research topic, especially with regards to the use of insulation based on nanomaterials due to their low U-values. In the present study, the use of nano vacuum insulation panels (VIPs) or polystyrene foam in the walls enabled a significant reduction in the annual energy consumption, a savings of 23% compared to the uninsulated wall in a study in New Aswan City. The application of nanogel glazing to the windows (two layers of clear glass filled with the nanogel) achieved approximately 11% savings in annual energy. This savings, twice that obtained by using double-glazed windows, could be due to the low U-value of nanogel compared to the U-values of argon or air. The embedded nanogel layer between two layers of argon and two layers of single clear glass showed a significant reduction in annual energy consumption, saving 26% compared to the use of a single layer of glass. Moreover, the integration between this window and embedded walls with 50 mm of polystyrene foam exhibited a significant improvement of energy efficiency by 47.6% while presenting the lowest value of simple payback period (SPP). This research provides a way for buildings to be insulated to make them more energy efficient as well as attractive from the economic standpoint.

Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (6) ◽  
pp. 1309 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasz Szul ◽  
Stanisław Kokoszka

In many regions, the heat used for space heating is a basic item in the energy balance of a building and significantly affects its operating costs. The accuracy of the assessment of heat consumption in an existing building and the determination of the main components of heat loss depends to a large extent on whether the energy efficiency improvement targets set in the thermal upgrading project are achieved. A frequent problem in the case of energy calculations is the lack of complete architectural and construction documentation of the analyzed objects. Therefore, there is a need to search for methods that will be suitable for a quick technical analysis of measures taken to improve energy efficiency in existing buildings. These methods should have satisfactory results in predicting energy consumption where the input is limited, inaccurate, or uncertain. Therefore, the aim of this work was to test the usefulness of a model based on Rough Set Theory (RST) for estimating the thermal energy consumption of buildings undergoing an energy renovation. The research was carried out on a group of 109 thermally improved residential buildings, for which energy performance was based on actual energy consumption before and after thermal modernization. Specific sets of important variables characterizing the examined buildings were distinguished. The groups of variables were used to estimate energy consumption in such a way as to obtain a compromise between the effort of obtaining them and the quality of the forecast. This has allowed the construction of a prediction model that allows the use of a fast, relatively simple procedure to estimate the final energy demand rate for heating buildings.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 4539 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kumar ◽  
Brar ◽  
Singh ◽  
Nikolovski ◽  
Baghaee ◽  
...  

With the ever-growing power demand, the energy efficiency in commercial and residential buildings is a matter of great concern. Also, strategic energy auditing (SEA) and demand-side management (DSM) are cost-effective means to identify the requirements of power components and their operation in the energy management system. In a commercial or residential building, the major components are light sources and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning. The number of these components to be installed depends upon the technical and environmental standards. In this scenario, energy auditing (EA) allows identifying the methods, scope, and time for energy management, and it helps the costumers to manage their energy consumption wisely to reduce electricity bills. In the literature, most of the traditional strategies employed specific system techniques and algorithms, whereas, in recent years, load shifting-based DSM techniques were used under different operating scenarios. Considering these facts, the energy data in a year were collected under three different seasonal changes, i.e., severe cold, moderate, and severe heat for the variation in load demand under different environmental conditions. In this work, the energy data under three conditions were averaged, and the DSM schemes were developed for the operation of power components before energy auditing and after energy auditing. Moreover, the performance of the proposed DSM techniques was compared with the practical results in both scenarios, and, from the results, it was observed that the energy consumption reduced significantly in the proposed DSM approach.


2014 ◽  
Vol 666 ◽  
pp. 322-326
Author(s):  
Yu Yang Peng ◽  
Jae Ho Choi

Energy efficiency is one of the important hot issues in wireless sensor networks. In this paper, a multi-hop scheme based on a cooperative multi-input multi-outputspatial modulation technique is proposed in order to improve energy efficiency in WSN. In this scheme, the sensor nodes are grouped into clusters in order to achieve a multi-input multi-output system; and a simple forwarding transmission scenario is considered so that the intermediate clusters only forward packets originated from the source cluster down to the sink cluster. In order to verify the performance of the proposed system, the bit energy consumption formula is derived and the optimal number of hopsis determined. By qualitative experiments, the obtained results show that the proposed scheme can deliver the data over multiple hops consuming optimal energy consumption per bit.


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Salah M Alabani ◽  
Ibrahim H Tawil

The residential sector in Libya has grown over the past decade in the construction of residential buildings due to the increase in the population. Moreover, the increase in the level of income has contributed to the increase in the purchase of household appliances, which leads to increased demand for energy. Energy consumption in the household sector accounted for 31% of total energy consumption during 2010, and the share of air conditioners in this sector consumed 18.35%. To reduce energy consumption and improve energy efficiency in this sector, policies should be considered to apply energy efficiency standards and markers to household electrical appliances, as they are considered one of the most successful programs used in the world. Countries are implementing such programs to reduce energy consumption in the domestic sector. This paper presents the possibility of implementing such programs to introduce the importance of energy efficiency standards and labeling programs for home appliances in Libya. The calculations required to design such programs show the energy savings that can be achieved during cooling loads in the summer period of 4 months July, August, September). A strategic plan has been developed during 10-year (2020-2030) to estimate the expected savings of energy consumed and to identify possible obstacles and difficulties by gradually increasing the energy efficiency ratio for comestic air conditioners in two stages, from EER10 to EER11 in the first stage is then raised to EER12 as the second stage.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 90-96
Author(s):  
E.V. Nezhnikova ◽  
◽  
M.V Chernyaev ◽  

The article presents the problems of ensuring energy efficiency of housing construction in the Russian Federation. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons and, despite the existence of federal and regional legislation, today Russia does not pay due attention to this issue, which leads to an unreasonable increase in electricity consumption both during the creation of residential real estate objects and during their operation. 96 Экономические системы. 2020. № 2 Economic Systems. 2020. No. 2 The relevance of the topic is enhanced by significant energy consumption of residential buildings in use: more than 50% of electrical energy consumption falls on these real estate objects. Therefore, it is no coincidence, but a completely logical trend of the 21st century, that the governments of most countries popularized the idea of designing and building energy-efficient residential buildings. It was established that the improvement of domestic legislation in terms of energy efficiency has greatly improved the regulatory framework for the design and construction of energy-efficient residential real estate.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip McKeen ◽  
Alan S. Fung

This paper examines the energy consumption of varying aspect ratio in multi-unit residential buildings in Canadian cities. The aspect ratio of a building is one of the most important determinants of energy efficiency. It defines the building surface area by which heat is transferred between the interior and exterior environment. It also defines the amount of building area that is subject to solar gain. The extent to which this can be beneficial or detrimental depends on the aspect ratio and climate. This paper evaluates the relationship between the geometry of buildings and location to identify a design vernacular for energy-efficient designs across Canada.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Ekung ◽  
Isaac Abiodun Odesola ◽  
Timothy Adewuyi

PurposeThe dearth of green standards (GS) in sub-Saharan Africa is alarming and the green cost premiums (GCP) in seeking certification in emerging markets are scanty. This paper studied the Building Energy-Efficiency Code of Nigeria (BEEC) and estimated the potential GCPs associated with the various energy-efficiency ratings.Design/methodology/approachThe study retrofitted 150 conventional residential bungalow and maisonette buildings using BEEC's energy-efficiency interventions and performed analytical estimating of the retrofitted designs. The mean cost premium associated with each energy-efficiency intervention is presented as well as their financial benefits and payback periods. The benefits are achievable financial-savings due to a reduction in energy consumption and savings in electricity payment estimated from the average energy demands of each building. An independent t-test was further conducted to determine the cost differential between energy-efficient design (ED) and conventional design over a five-year period.FindingsThe potential GCPs and their payback periods are actually less than feared. The study showed that less than 5% and 21% extra funding would be required to achieve 1 to 4-Star and 5-Star energy-efficiency ratings involving passive design interventions and photovoltaic systems. Passive and active design interventions produced a financial savings of $8.08/m2 in electricity payment and $2.84/m2 per annum in energy consumption reduction. The financial-savings ($10.92/m2) was objective to pay-off the GCPs in less than four years. The independent t-test analysis showed the cost of ED is more economical after four years into the project lifecycle.Originality/valueThe research provides cost benchmarks for navigating cost planning and budgetary decisions during ED implementation and births a departure point for advancing energy-efficient construction in developing markets from the rational economic decision perspective.


Author(s):  
O. A. Omitaomu ◽  
B. L. Bhaduri ◽  
C. S. Maness ◽  
J. B. Kodysh ◽  
A. M. Noranzyk

Energy efficiency is the lowest cost option being promoted for achieving a sustainable energy policy. Thus, there have been some innovations to reduce residential and commercial energy usage. There have also been calls to the utility companies to give customers access to timely, useful, and actionable information about their energy use, in order to unleash additional innovations in homes and businesses. Hence, some web-based tools have been developed for the public to access and compare energy usage data. In order to advance on these efforts, we propose a data analytics framework called Citizen Engagement for Energy Efficient Communities (CoNNECT). On the one hand, CoNNECT will help households to understand (i) the patterns in their energy consumption over time and how those patterns correlate with weather data, (ii) how their monthly consumption compares to other households living in houses of similar size and age within the same geographic areas, and (iii) what other customers are doing to reduce their energy consumption. We hope that the availability of such data and analysis to the public will facilitate energy efficiency efforts in residential buildings. These capabilities formed the public portal of the CoNNECT framework. On the other hand, CoNNECT will help the utility companies to better understand their customers by making available to the utilities additional datasets that they naturally do not have access to, which could help them develop focused services for their customers. These additional capabilities are parts of the utility portal of the CoNNECT framework. In this paper, we describe the CoNNECT framework, the sources of the data used in its development, the functionalities of both the public and utility portals, and the application of empirical mode decomposition for decomposing usage signals into mode functions with the hope that such mode functions could help in clustering customers into unique groups and in developing guidelines for energy conservation.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip McKeen ◽  
Alan S. Fung

This paper examines the energy consumption of varying aspect ratio in multi-unit residential buildings in Canadian cities. The aspect ratio of a building is one of the most important determinants of energy efficiency. It defines the building surface area by which heat is transferred between the interior and exterior environment. It also defines the amount of building area that is subject to solar gain. The extent to which this can be beneficial or detrimental depends on the aspect ratio and climate. This paper evaluates the relationship between the geometry of buildings and location to identify a design vernacular for energy-efficient designs across Canada.


Water ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 1068 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juliana May Sangoi ◽  
Enedir Ghisi

The objective of this paper was to compare primary energy consumption and energy efficiency during the operation phase of different types and combinations of water heating systems in single-family dwellings. Systems with an electric shower, liquefied petroleum gas heater, and solar heater with electric backup were analysed. The analysis was performed by means of computer simulation using EnergyPlus. Three Brazilian cities with different climates were assessed, i.e., Curitiba, Brasília and Belém. The systems were compared in terms of final energy and primary energy consumption. Results showed that systems with an electric shower, which have a lower water flow rate, led to lower primary energy consumption. The solar heating system combined with an electric shower was the option with the lowest energy consumption, and the solar heating system with a heating element in the storage tank was the option that consumed more energy. The systems were sized according to the requirements of the Brazilian energy efficiency labelling for residential buildings, and the efficiency level was compared to the results of primary energy consumption. The electric shower was found to be the third lowest energy consumer, but it was ranked the least energy efficient by Brazilian labelling, while systems with high energy consumption, such as gas heaters and solar heaters with a heating element in the storage tank, were ranked the most energy efficient. Therefore, a review of the requirements and methodology of the Brazilian energy efficiency labelling for residential buildings is recommended in order to encourage the use of truly efficient systems. Public policies that encourage solar heating systems should establish requirements regarding the configuration and sizing both the solar heating system and the backup system.


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