scholarly journals Urban energy performance calculation based on EPBD standards. GIS4ENER tool

Author(s):  
Gema Hernandez-Moral ◽  
◽  
Víctor Iván Serna-Gonzalez ◽  
Francisco Javier Miguel Herrero ◽  
César Valmaseda-Tranque

Climate change will have a strong impact on urban settings, which will also represent one of the major challenges (world’s urban population is expected to double by 2050, EU buildings consume 40% final energy and generate 36% CO2 emissions). A plethora of initiatives address this challenge by stressing the underlying necessity of thinking globally but acting locally. This entails the inclusion of a varied set of decision-makers acting at different scales and needing robust, comprehensive and comparable information that can support them in their energy planning process. To this end, this paper presents the GIS4ENER tool to support energy planners at different scales by proposing a bottom-up approach towards the calculation of energy demand and consumption at local scale that can be aggregated to support other decision-making scales. It is based on three main pillars: the exploitation of publicly available data (such as Open Street Maps, Building Stock Observatory or TABULA), the implementation of standardised methods to calculate energy (in particular the ISO52000 family) and the use of Geographic Information Systems to represent and facilitate the understanding of results, and their aggregation. The paper presents the context, main differences with other approaches and results of the tool in Osimo (IT).

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Torabi Moghadam ◽  
Silvia Coccolo ◽  
Guglielmina Mutani ◽  
Patrizia Lombardi ◽  
Jean Louis Scartezzini ◽  
...  

The spatial visualization is a very useful tool to help decision-makers in the urban planning process to create future energy transition strategies, implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in the context of sustainable cities. Statistical methods are often used to understand the driving parameters of energy consumption but rarely used to evaluate future urban renovation scenarios. Simulating whole cities using energy demand softwares can be very extensive in terms of computer resources and data collection. A new methodology, using city archetypes is proposed, here, to simulate the energy consumption of urban areas including urban energy planning scenarios. The objective of this paper is to present an innovative solution for the computation and visualization of energy saving at the city scale.The energy demand of cities, as well as the micro-climatic conditions, are calculated by using a simplified 3D model designed as function of the city urban geometrical and physical characteristics. Data are extracted from a GIS database that was used in a previous study. In this paper, we showed how the number of buildings to be simulated can be drastically reduced without affecting the accuracy of the results. This model is then used to evaluate the influence of two set of renovation solutions. The energy consumption are then integrated back in the GIS to identify the areas in the city where refurbishment works are needed more rapidly. The city of Settimo Torinese (Italy) is used as a demonstrator for the proposed methodology, which can be applied to all cities worldwide with limited amount of information.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (11) ◽  
pp. 3311
Author(s):  
Víctor Pérez-Andreu ◽  
Carolina Aparicio-Fernández ◽  
José-Luis Vivancos ◽  
Javier Cárcel-Carrasco

The number of buildings renovated following the introduction of European energy-efficiency policy represents a small number of buildings in Spain. So, the main Spanish building stock needs an urgent energy renovation. Using passive strategies is essential, and thermal characterization and predictive tests of the energy-efficiency improvements achieving acceptable levels of comfort for their users are urgently necessary. This study analyzes the energy performance and thermal comfort of the users in a typical Mediterranean dwelling house. A transient simulation has been used to acquire the scope of Spanish standards for its energy rehabilitation, taking into account standard comfort conditions. The work is based on thermal monitoring of the building and a numerical validated model developed in TRNSYS. Energy demands for different models have been calculated considering different passive constructive measures combined with real wind site conditions and the behavior of users related to natural ventilation. This methodology has given us the necessary information to decide the best solution in relation to energy demand and facility of implementation. The thermal comfort for different models is not directly related to energy demand and has allowed checking when and where the measures need to be done.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 2266
Author(s):  
Valentina Marincioni ◽  
Virginia Gori ◽  
Ernst Jan de Place Hansen ◽  
Daniel Herrera-Avellanosa ◽  
Sara Mauri ◽  
...  

Buildings of heritage significance due to their historical, architectural, or cultural value, here called historic buildings, constitute a large proportion of the building stock in many countries around the world. Improving the performance of such buildings is necessary to lower the carbon emissions of the stock, which generates around 40% of the overall emissions worldwide. In historic buildings, it is estimated that heat loss through external walls contributes significantly to the overall energy consumption, and is associated with poor thermal comfort and indoor air quality. Measures to improve the performance of walls of historic buildings require a balance between energy performance, indoor environmental quality, heritage significance, and technical compatibility. Appropriate wall measures are available, but the correct selection and implementation require an integrated process throughout assessment (planning), design, construction, and use. Despite the available knowledge, decision-makers often have limited access to robust information on tested retrofit measures, hindering the implementation of deep renovation. This paper provides an evidence-based approach on the steps required during assessment, design, and construction, and after retrofitting through a literature review. Moreover, it provides a review of possible measures for wall retrofit within the deep renovation of historic buildings, including their advantages and disadvantages and the required considerations based on context.


2014 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Regina de Casas Castro Marins

Purpose – Energy use in urban areas has turned a subject of local and worldwide interest over the last few years, especially emphasized by the correlated greenhouse gases emissions. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the overall energy efficiency potential and emissions resulting from integrated solutions in urban energy planning, in the scale of districts and neighbourhoods in Brazil. Design/methodology/approach – The approach is based on the description and the application of a method to analyse energy performance of urban areas and support their planning. It is a quantitative bottom-up method and involves urban morphology, urban mobility, buildings and energy supply systems. Procedures are applied to the case study of Agua Branca urban development area, located in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Findings – In the case of Agua Branca area, energy efficiency measures in buildings have shown to be very important mostly for the buildings economies themselves. For the area as a whole, strategies in promoting public transport are more effective in terms of energy efficiency and also to decrease pollutant emissions. Originality/value – Literature review has shown there is a lack of approaches and procedures able to support urban energy planning at a community scale. The bottom-up method presented in this paper integrates a plenty of disaggregated and multisectoral parameters at the same stage in urban planning and shows that is possible to identify the most promising actions by building overall performance indexes.


2014 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-83
Author(s):  
Henk Visscher ◽  
Dasa Majcen ◽  
Laure Itard

The energy saving potential of the building stock is large and considered to be the most cost efficient to contribute to the CO2 reduction ambitions. Severe governmental policies steering on reducing the energy use seem essential to stimulate and enforce the improvement of the energy performance of buildings with a focus on reducing the heating and cooling energy demand. In Europe the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive is a driving force for member states to develop and strengthen energy performance regulations for new buildings and energy certificates for the building stock. The goals are to build net zero energy new buildings in 2020 and to reach a neutral energy situation in the whole stock by 2050. More and more research projects deliver insight that the expected impact of stricter regulations for newly built houses is limited and the actual effects of energy savings through housing renovations stay behind the expectations. Theoretical energy use calculated on base of the design standard for new houses and assessment standards for Energy Performance Certificates of existing dwellings differ largely from the measured actual energy use. The paper uses the findings of some Post Occupancy Evaluation research projects. Is the energy saving potential of the housing stock smaller than expected and should we therefore change the policies?


2019 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 539-553 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Herrera-Avellanosa ◽  
Franziska Haas ◽  
Gustaf Leijonhufvud ◽  
Tor Brostrom ◽  
Alessia Buda ◽  
...  

Purpose Improving the energy performance of historic buildings has the potential to reduce carbon emissions while protecting built heritage through its continued use. However, implementing energy retrofits in these buildings faces social, economic, and technical barriers. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to present the approach of IEA-SHC Task 59 to address some of these barriers. Design/methodology/approach Task 59 aims to achieve the lowest possible energy demand for historic buildings. This paper proposes a definition for this concept and identifies three key socio-technical barriers to achieving this goal: the decision-makers’ lack of engagement in the renovation of historic buildings, a lack of support during the design process and limited access to proven retrofit solutions. Two methods – dissemination of best-practice and guidelines – are discussed in this paper as critical approaches for addressing the first two barriers. Findings An assessment of existing databases indicates a lack of best-practice examples focused specifically on historic buildings and the need for tailored information describing these case studies. Similarly, an initial evaluation of guidelines highlighted the need for process-oriented guidance and its evaluation in practice. Originality/value This paper provides a novel definition of lowest possible energy demand for historic buildings that is broadly applicable in both practice and research. Both best-practices and guidelines are intended to be widely disseminated throughout the field.


2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (14) ◽  
pp. 7604-7613
Author(s):  
Hanna M. Breunig ◽  
Tyler Huntington ◽  
Ling Jin ◽  
Alastair Robinson ◽  
Corinne D. Scown

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Ritsma

Building energy models are an effective tool for evaluating energy reduction opportunities in both design phase and post-occupancy scenarios. By merging building energy models with city scale building stock data, it is possible to analyze energy performance at a greater breadth, providing more informed policy decisions and solutions to energy demand asymmetries in urban metropolises. This study examines the energy reduction potential for office buildings in the Toronto 2030 District, by testing individual and bundled energy conservation measures and greenhouse gas reduction strategies using a reference building energy model. When extrapolated across Toronto’s urban core, simulation results determined that standard interventions on the existing office building stock have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 91.5%, in line with 2030 District initiatives.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 44-51
Author(s):  
Félix Antonio Solórzano Narváez ◽  
Edgar Iván Moreno Castro

The urban energy model is based on imports from external sources. The continuous increase in energy demand due to population growth and development implies increasing resource requirements. The alternative is to use renewable energies that take advantage of urban resources. The diversity of typologies of cities in terms of resources, demands, architectural conditions, infrastructure, or density, makes a specific analysis necessary. This work identifies fourteen factors concerning the planning process that would allow choosing the most appropriate technology for a given city. Through consultation of experts, the existence of the resource is defined as the most prevalent factor, followed by economic conditions; On the other hand, it is detected that environmental aspects such as global warming, eutrophication, or acidification, are the least incidents when selecting technologies.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (20) ◽  
pp. 5379 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan Carlos Osorio-Aravena ◽  
Marina Frolova ◽  
Julio Terrados-Cepeda ◽  
Emilio Muñoz-Cerón

Despite the fact that some renewable energy (RE) technologies are already techno-economically viable, the high spatial dilution nature of their sources, together with aspects beyond the techno-economic ones (such as environmental, social, cultural, and other aspects), can become strong constraints and barriers when it comes to their integration into electric systems. Therefore, with the objective of determining whether studies on spatial energy planning (SEP) are addressing these issues, a systematic review has been carried out to address whether SEP studies are considering aspects beyond the techno-economic ones when integrating RE technologies and, if they are being considered, how they are addressed in their analyses and what criteria, factors, and indicators of the aspects that are employed. Apart from the revelation that the concept of SEP has been included within high-quality scientific literature for less than ten years, SEP seems to be an unexploited tool with the potential to provide significant insight into a planning process that could prevent conflicts when integrating RE technologies into electric systems. This would be useful for decision-makers and for accelerating a sustainable energy transition.


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