Planheat Tool

Author(s):  
Matteo Porta

More than two thirds of the European population live in urban areas. Cities are places where both problems emerge and solutions are found. They are fertile ground for science and technology, for culture and innovation, for individual and collective creativity, and for mitigating the impact of climate change. Cities are communities where to study environmental, social, economic impact of new energy technologies. A tool to unlock the planning potential of EU cities has been developed thanks to the collaboration of different EU research centers, SMEs and consultancy firms led by Rina Consulting involved in Planheat EU Project (funded by the European Union's H2020 Programme under grant agreement 723757). PLANHEAT Consortium developed and validated an integrated and easy-to-use, GIS-based, and open source tool to support local authorities in selecting, simulating and comparing alternative low carbon and economically sustainable scenarios for heating and cooling.

Author(s):  
Dasaraden Mauree ◽  
Silvia Coccolo ◽  
Dasun Perera ◽  
Vahid Nik ◽  
Jean-Louis Scartezzini ◽  
...  

Building more energy efficient and sustainable urban areas that will both mitigate the effect of climate change and adapt for the future climate, requires the development new tools and methods that can help urban planners, architect and communities achieve this goal. In the current study, we designed a workflow that links different methodologies developed separately, to derive the energy consumption of a university school campus for the future. Three different scenarios for typical future years (2039, 2069, 2099) were run as well as a renovation scenario (Minergie-P). We analyse the impact of climate change on the heating and cooling demand of the buildings and determined the relevance of the accounting of the local climate in this particular context. The results from the simulations showed that in the future there will a constant decrease in the heating demand while for the cooling demand there will be a significant increase. It was further demonstrated that when the local climate was taken into account there was an even higher rise in the cooling demand but also that the proposed renovations were not sufficient to design resilient buildings. We then discuss the implication of this work on the simulation of building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale and the impact of future local climate on energy system design. We finally give a few perspective regarding improved urban design and possible pathways for the future urban areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (16) ◽  
pp. 5543
Author(s):  
Yi Zhang ◽  
He Qi ◽  
Yu Zhou ◽  
Zhonghua Zhang ◽  
Xi Wang

To meet long-term climate change targets, the way that heating and cooling are generated and distributed has to be changed to achieve a supply of affordable, secure and low-carbon energy for all buildings and infrastructures. Among the possible renewable sources of energy, ground source heat pump (GSHP) systems can be an effective low-carbon solution that is compatible with district heating and cooling in urban areas. There are no location restrictions for this technology, and underground energy sources are stable for long-term use. According to a previous study, buildings in urban areas have demonstrated significant spatial heterogeneity in terms of their capacity to demand (C/D) ratio under the application of GSHP due to variations in heating demand and available space. If a spatial sharing strategy can be developed to allow the surplus geothermal capacity to be shared with neighbors, the heating and cooling demands of a greater number of buildings in an area can be satisfied, thus achieving a city with lower carbon emissions. In this study, a GSHP district system model was developed with a specific embedding sharing strategy for the application of GSHP. Two sharing strategies were proposed in this study: (i) Strategy 1 involved individual systems with borehole sharing, and (ii) Strategy 2 was a central district system. Three districts in London were selected to compare the performance of the developed models on the C/D ratio, required borehole number and carbon emissions. According to the comparison analysis, both strategies were able to enhance the GSHP application capacity and increase the savings of carbon emissions. However, the improvement levels were shown to be different. A greater number of building types and a higher variety in building types with larger differentiation in heating and cooling demands can contribute to a better district sharing performance. In addition, it was found that these two sharing strategies were applicable to different kinds of districts.


Author(s):  
Dasaraden Mauree ◽  
Silvia Coccolo ◽  
Amarasinghage Tharindu Perera ◽  
Vahid Nik ◽  
Jean-Louis Scartezzini ◽  
...  

Building more energy efficient and sustainable urban areas that will both mitigate the effect of climate change and adapt for the future climate, requires the development new tools and methods that can help urban planners, architect and communities achieve this goal. In the current study, we designed a workflow that links different methodologies developed separately, to derive the energy consumption of a university school campus for the future. Three different scenarios for typical future years (2039, 2069, 2099) were run as well as a renovation scenario (Minergie-P). We analyse the impact of climate change on the heating and cooling demand of the buildings and determined the relevance of the accounting of the local climate in this particular context. The results from the simulations showed that in the future there will a constant decrease in the heating demand while for the cooling demand there will be a significant increase. It was further demonstrated that when the local climate was taken into account there was an even higher rise in the cooling demand but also that the proposed renovations were not sufficient to design resilient buildings. We then discuss the implication of this work on the simulation of building energy consumption at the neighbourhood scale and the impact of future local climate on energy system design. We finally give a few perspective regarding improved urban design and possible pathways for the future urban areas.


2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-58
Author(s):  
Didem Gunes Yilmaz ◽  

Paris Agreement of December 2015 was the last official initiative led by the United Nations (UN) as the driver of climate change mitigation. Climate change was hence linked with an increase in the occurrence of natural hazards. A variety of initiatives were consequently adopted under different themes such as sustainable cities, climate-friendly development and low-carbon cities. However, most of the initiatives targeted by global cities with urban areas being the focus in terms of taking action against global warming issues. This is due to the structural and environmental features of cities characterized by being populated, as such, they not only generate a large number of carbon emissions but also happens to be the biggest consumer of natural resources. In turn, they create a microclimate, which contributes to climate change. Masdar City, for example, was designed as the first fully sustainable urban area, which replaced fuel-based energy with the electric-based energy. China, as another example, introduced the Sponge Cities action, a method of urban water management to mitigate against flooding. Consequently, architects and urban planners are urged to conform to the proposals that would mitigate global warming. This paper, as a result, examines some of the models that have been internationally adopted and thereafter provide the recommendations that can be implemented in large urban areas in Turkey, primarily in Istanbul.


Author(s):  
Froilan D. Mobo

Today’s climate is unpredictable there are so many natural calamities which took place in our country which is the Philippines, two weeks ago because of the sudden changes of the weather in the Province of Zambales, the Philippines a strong tornado hits the town of Castillejos, Zambales which some of the electrical wirings were severely damaged because of the sudden change of the climate. The researcher is thinking of implementing a home gardening to each Municipality in our Province. By doing this it can help lessen the pollution in the air and it will help heal our Ozone Layer faster. The empirical evidence for the benefits of gardening and the advocate of the development and testing of socio-ecological models of community resilience through the impact of community gardens, especially in urban areas is highly effective(Okvat & Zautra, 2011). As lessening the air pollution will have a greater impact on our Ozone Layer no to deplete but it will heal the would faster. The present study revealed that local experiences in the face of climate change adaptation have merits that need special consideration(Anik & Khan, 2012). Also, the Researcher will implement this project in the Municipality of Subic, Zambales.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (16) ◽  
pp. 4805
Author(s):  
Shu Chen ◽  
Zhengen Ren ◽  
Zhi Tang ◽  
Xianrong Zhuo

Globally, buildings account for nearly 40% of the total primary energy consumption and are responsible for 20% of the total greenhouse gas emissions. Energy consumption in buildings is increasing with the increasing world population and improving standards of living. Current global warming conditions will inevitably impact building energy consumption. To address this issue, this report conducted a comprehensive study of the impact of climate change on residential building energy consumption. Using the methodology of morphing, the weather files were constructed based on the typical meteorological year (TMY) data and predicted data generated from eight typical global climate models (GCMs) for three representative concentration pathways (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5) from 2020 to 2100. It was found that the most severe situation would occur in scenario RCP8.5, where the increase in temperature will reach 4.5 °C in eastern Australia from 2080–2099, which is 1 °C higher than that in other climate zones. With the construction of predicted weather files in 83 climate zones all across Australia, ten climate zones (cities)—ranging from heating-dominated to cooling-dominated regions—were selected as representative climate zones to illustrate the impact of climate change on heating and cooling energy consumption. The quantitative change in the energy requirements for space heating and cooling, along with the star rating, was simulated for two representative detached houses using the AccuRate software. It could be concluded that the RCP scenarios significantly affect the energy loads, which is consistent with changes in the ambient temperature. The heating load decreases for all climate zones, while the cooling load increases. Most regions in Australia will increase their energy consumption due to rising temperatures; however, the energy requirements of Adelaide and Perth would not change significantly, where the space heating and cooling loads are balanced due to decreasing heating and increasing cooling costs in most scenarios. The energy load in bigger houses will change more than that in smaller houses. Furthermore, Brisbane is the most sensitive region in terms of relative space energy changes, and Townsville appears to be the most sensitive area in terms of star rating change in this study. The impact of climate change on space building energy consumption in different climate zones should be considered in future design strategies due to the decades-long lifespans of Australian residential houses.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 1811-1821 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. Tromeur ◽  
R. Ménard ◽  
J.-B. Bailly ◽  
C. Soulié

Abstract. Natural hazards, due to climate change, are particularly damaging in urban areas because of interdependencies of their networks. So, urban resilience has to face up to climate risks. The most impacting phenomenon is the urban heat island (UHI) effect. The storage capacity of heat is depending on shapes of buildings, public spaces, spatial organization, transport or even industrial activities. So, adaptive strategies for improving urban climate could be possible in different ways. In the framework of the French project Resilis, this study characterises urban vulnerability and resilience in terms of energy needs of buildings and outside urban comfort according to the IPCC carbon dioxide emission scenarios B2 and A2 for the period 2050–2100 for 10 French cities. The evolutions of four climate indicators in terms of heating and cooling needs and number of hours when the temperature is above 28 °C are then obtained for each city to analyse climate risks and their impacts in urban environment.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (15) ◽  
pp. 6135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Julio Apolonio Callejas ◽  
Luciane Cleonice Durante ◽  
Eduardo Diz-Mellado ◽  
Carmen Galán-Marín

Climate change will bring changes to our living conditions, particularly in urban areas. Climate-responsive design strategies through courtyards can help to moderate temperatures and reduce the thermal stress of its occupants. Thermal response inside courtyard is affected not only by its morphological composition but also by subjective factors. Thus, standardized thermal scales may not reflect the stress of the occupants. This study investigated the impact on thermal attenuation provided by a courtyard located in a tropical climate under extreme cold and hot synoptic conditions by means of local thermal sensation scales. Microclimatic variables were monitored, simultaneously with the application of a thermal comfort questionnaire, by using weather stations installed outside and inside the courtyard. The Modified Physiological Equivalent Temperature Index (mPET) was utilized to predict the heat stress. Calibration was conducted using linear regression to attribute particular thermal sensation votes to correspondent mPET values. It was found that thermal sensation can be affected by factors such as psychological, behavioral, and physiological. The courtyard’s form provides a passive cooling effect, stabilizing interior thermal sensation, with attenuation peaks of 6.4 °C on a cold day and 5.0 °C on a hot day. Courtyards are an alternative passive strategy to improve thermal ambience in tropical climate, counterbalancing climate change.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 4082 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom Assmann ◽  
Sebastian Lang ◽  
Florian Müller ◽  
Michael Schenk

Mitigating climate change and improving urban livability is prompting cities to improve sustainability of urban transportation and logistics. Cargo bikes, in combination with urban transshipment points, are gaining momentum as a green last mile alternative. Although a wide body of research proves their viability in dense urban areas, knowledge about planning urban transshipment points is very limited. This also entails the siting of such facilities and the assessment of effects on emissions. This study therefore presents a first quantitative scenario-based model that assesses the impacts on a district. It examines different strategies for siting urban transshipment points in a single district and its effect on traffic, the carbon footprint, and air quality to give strategic insights where to create candidate locations for such facilities. Our result contributes to knowledge of planning urban transshipment facilities and assessing the impact of different configurations. The findings demonstrated that the use of cargo bikes to make courier, express, and parcel (CEP) deliveries in urban districts could reduce greenhouse gas (GHG), particulate matter (PM10), and nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions significantly. However, the choice of vehicles completing inbound and outbound processes and the strategies for siting urban transshipment points display widely differing and even conflicting potential to reduce emissions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 01024
Author(s):  
Anqi Lv ◽  
Zhiqiang Zhu ◽  
Guohua Cheng ◽  
Yi Jia ◽  
Ling Shi

As the urbanization in China is accelerating, “urban diseases” such as city congestion and environmental pollution arise. Traffic is one of the important factors leading to such urban problems. Therefore, in order to succeed in pollution prevention and control, overcome the shortcomings in urban traffic, and realize high-quality development of transport service, we should promote the development of green transport based on low carbon and environmental protection, and intensively implement green travel. First of all, we should accelerate the upgrading of transportation equipment technology, speed up the promotion and application of new energy vehicles in the field of car sharing, and promote the green and low-carbon development of transport service. Based on it, this paper first defines the green travel, new energy vehicle sharing and other related concepts, and analyzes the impact of new energy vehicle sharing, and then sorts out the development process of new energy vehicle sharing in China and analyzes the development trend and problems being confronted with in this field, and finally puts forward the development policy suggestions on domestic new energy vehicle sharing.


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