Supply and demand subject behavior of building energy efficiency in market fostering

Consumers and developers are the market transaction subjects which drive the development of building energy efficiency market. High energy prices, unreasonable heating system, information asymmetry of building energy suppress demand of energy efficiency construction; high technical risk and construction cost, nonstandard market restrict the supply of energy efficiency construction. To promote the development of building energy efficiency, we must set up effective incentive policies for both sides of the market transaction, improve the supervisory system, promote the technological progress, build the information sharing platform, so as to achieve the purpose of cultivating and improving the building energy efficiency market system, regulating the behavior of supply and demand subject, building the mutually beneficial and cooperative partnership, and realizing the balance of interests.

Building energy efficiency and COVID-19 infection risk:Lessons from office room management

To prevent COVID-19 outbreaks,many indoor environments are increasing the volume of fresh air and running air conditioning systems at maximum power.However,it is essential to consider the comfort of indoor occupants and energy consumption simultaneously when controlling the spread of infection.In this study,we simulated the energy consumption of a three-storey office building for postgraduate students and teachers at a university in Beijing.Based on an improved Wells-Riley model,we established an infection risk-energy consumption model considering non-pharmaceutical interventions and human comfort.The infection risk and building energy efficiency under different room occupancy rates on weekdays and at weekends,during different seasons were then evaluated.Energy consumption,based on the real hourly room occupancy rate during weekdays was 43%–55%lower than energy consumption when dynamic room occupancy rate was not considered.If all people wear masks indoors,the total energy consumption could be reduced by 32%–45%and the proportion of energy used for ventilation for epidemic prevention and control could be reduced by 22%–36%during all seasons.When only graduate students wear masks in rooms with a high occupancy,total energy consumption can be reduced by 15%–25%.After optimization,compared with the strict epidemic prevention and control strategy(the effective reproductive number Rt=1 in all rooms),energy consumption during weekdays(weekends)in winter,summer and transition seasons,can be reduced by 45%(74%),43%(69%),and 55%(78%),respectively.The results of this study provide a scientific basis for policies on epidemic prevention and control,carbon emission peak and neutrality,and Healthy China 2030.

Berkeley Lab and Tsinghua University to Tackle Building Energy Efficiency

Berkeley Lab and Tsinghua University forged ties on Aug. 12, 2009 to promote the development and implementation of building energy efficiency, a move intended to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S and China.

A New Type of Paper-frame Cavernous Material and Its Application in Energy Efficiency in Buildings

This paper introduces a new type of paper-frame cavernous material, which is a made-up hollow material, by using silicate-cinder size to drench and daub. It possesses excellent performances such as light-weight, high-intensity, fire-resistance, sound-insulation, heat-insulation and no-pollution. Composed with concrete materials, a new type of bearing and energy-efficient block can be gained, which is kind of excellent wall materials and has a wide application prospect.

Construction of building energy conservation incentive policies under government regulation: Based on the subjects' behavior analysis

Building energy efficiency is a long-term strategy to achieve sustainable development, but the inconsistencies of main interests during the implementation lead to the need for government regulation in building energy conservation. Implementation of building energy efficiency of government regulation covers three aspects of construction and involves relevant participators, so the paper analyzes interests and roles of the related subjects in building energy saving, explore the motivations and its conversion mechanism of each player, and dissect the game relationship of associated earnings of developers' and consumers' behaviors selection under government control. Finally, the paper proposes basic requirements of building incentive policies for related subjects under government control to regulate the main behaviors of subjects in building energy efficient buildings and achieve energy efficiency goals and balance of all parties' benefits.

Analysis and Evaluation of Thermal-cooling Loads of Office Buildings Using Carrier Software in Iran

The importance and necessity of energy saving in the world have been dis­cussed for many years,but achieving a logical and transparent solution is still one of the main challenges and problems of the world’s economy.The rapid growth of energy consumption in the last two decades has caused the security of the domestic energy supply of buildings to face serious prob­lems.In this research,first by entering parameters such as the type of mate­rials,doors and windows,and the type of soil on the floor connected to the ground,etc.in the heat and cold load calculation software(HAP Carrier)as the design calculations and then in the second step entering the specifica­tions inferred from the Iran’s national building code as a reference for ener­gy saving calculations,calculations are performed and compared as the first criterion,and finally these two outputs are compared.The actual energy consumption and determination of the building energy consumption index are determined as another criterion,as well as the degree of deviation from the actual consumption.The results showed that the theoretical method and the thermal and refrigeration load calculations of the Zanjan Gas Company building have 6%difference in cooling load but the heating load is about 34%different,which means for cooling loads,the theoretical model can be used with high accuracy but for heating loads,the national building code needs fundamental changes.

Employing Computational Intelligence to Generate More Intelligent and Energy Efficient Living Spaces

Our living environments are being gradually occupied with an abundant number of digital objects that have networking and computing capabilities. After these devices are plugged into a network, they initially advertise their presence and capabilities in the form of services so that they can be discovered and, if desired, exploited by the user or other networked devices. With the increasing number of these devices attached to the network, the complexity to configure and control them increases, which may lead to major processing and communication overhead. Hence, the devices are no longer expected to just act as primitive stand-alone appliances that only provide the facilities and services to the user they are designed for, but also offer complex services that emerge from unique combinations of devices. This creates the necessity for these devices to be equipped with some sort of intelligence and self-awareness to enable them to be self-configuring and self-programming. However, with this ＂smart evolution＂, the cognitive load to configure and control such spaces becomes immense. One way to relieve this load is by employing artificial intelligence （AI） techniques to create an intelligent ＂presence＂ where the system will be able to recognize the users and autonomously program the environment to be energy efficient and responsive to the user＇s needs and behaviours. These AI mechanisms should be embedded in the user＇s environments and should operate in a non-intrusive manner. This paper will show how computational intelligence （CI）, which is an emerging domain of AI, could be employed and embedded in our living spaces to help such environments to be more energy efficient, intelligent, adaptive and convenient to the users.

Dynamic thermal performance and energy-saving potential analysis of a modular pipe-embedded building envelope integrated with thermal diffusive materials

In the context of racing to carbon neutrality,the pipe-embedded building system makes the opaque envelopes gradually regarded as the multi-functional element,which also provides an opportunity for thermal insulation solutions to transform from high to zero-carbon attributes.Based on the re-examination of the heat transfer process of conventional pipe-embedded radiant(CPR)walls,the modular pipe-embedded radiant(MPR)wall integrated with thermal diffusive materials is proposed to enhance the heat transfer capacity of CPR walls in the direction parallel to the wall surface,thereby forming a more stable and continuous invisible thermal barrier layer inside the opaque envelopes.A comprehensive thermal and energy-saving analysis study regarding the influence mechanism of several key factors of MPR walls,e.g.,the inclination angle of the filler cavity(θ-value),geometry size of the filler cavity(a:b-value)and thermal conductivity of the filler(λf-value),is conducted based on a validated numerical model.Results show that the dynamic thermal behaviors of MPR walls can be significantly improved due to that the radial thermal resistance in the filler cavity of MPR walls can be reduced by 50%,while the maximum extra exterior surface heat loss caused by the optimization measures is only 2.1%.Besides,a better technical effect can be achieved by setting the major axis of the filler cavity towards the room side,where the interior surface heat load/total injected heat first decreases/increases and then increases/decreases with the increase of theθ-value.In particular,the MPR wall withθL=60°can obtain the best performance when other conditions remain the same.Moreover,the performance indicators of MPR walls can be further improved with the increase of the cavity size(a:b-value),while showing a trend of rapid improvement in theλf-value range of 2–5λC and slow improvement increase in theλf-value range of 5–12λC.In addition,the improvement effect brought by optimizing theθ-value is more obvious as the a:b-value orλf-value increases.

A hierarchical multi-purpose roller shade controller to enhance indoor comfort and energy efficiency

Building envelope is the sole interface with outdoors that can lie in the level of integrating control strategies to enhance occupant's comfort and building performance. However, in the literature, there is still a lack of multi-purpose control strategies which can balance diverse and antagonistic aspects of occupant comfort while keeping the building energy consumption under control. Therefore, this research proposed an integrated simulation-based workflow using EnergyPlus and Python-based package, OpyPlus, to adjust a roller shade for single occupied office space in a hot and arid climate. The developed system aims to improve both occupant's visual and thermal comfort considering daylight level, potential glare at occupant's field of view, view to outdoor satisfaction, and Fanger PMV method, and then, managing the HVAC system in favor of enhancing building energy efficiency. Furthermore, the controller's performance was compared to multiple fixed controls and another multi-agent control scenario from visual and thermal comfort and energy performance perspectives. The developed control system could perform effectively to provide a glare-free view and higher thermally comfortable indoor environment by 99% for the occupant across the year, while improving the heating and cooling loads. The research provides novel insights and potential future integrations for facade designers and building operators.

A review of data mining technologies in building energy systems:Load prediction,pattern identification,fault detection and diagnosis

With the advent of the era of big data,buildings have become not only energy-intensive but also data-intensive.Data mining technologies have been widely utilized to release the values of massive amounts of building operation data with an aim of improving the operation performance of building energy systems.This paper aims at making a comprehensive literature review of the applications of data mining technologies in this domain.In general,data mining technologies can be classified into two categories,i.e.,supervised data mining technologies and unsupervised data mining technologies.In this field,supervised data mining technologies are usually utilized for building energy load prediction and fault detection/diagnosis.And unsupervised data mining technologies are usually utilized for building operation pattern identification and fault detection/diagnosis.Comprehensive discussions are made about the strengths and shortcomings of the data mining-based methods.Based on this review,suggestions for future researches are proposed towards effective and efficient data mining solutions for building energy systems.

Design,fabrication and energy-saving evaluation of five-layer structure based transparent heat mirror coatings for windows application

Transparent heat mirror which allows the transmission of visible sunlight while reflects the infrared thermal energy is an effective building energy efficiency technology for hot climatic regions.In this work,a five-layer dielectric/metal/dielectric/metal/dielectric(DMDMD)coating of Si_(3)N_(4)/Ag/Si_(3)N_(4)/Ag/Si_(3)N_(4)structure is proposed.The radiative properties of the five-layer coatings are theoretically investigated by transfer matrix method.The thicknesses of the layers are optimized by using particle swarm optimization method.The sample of the designed Si_(3)N_(4)/Ag/Si_(3)N_(4)/Ag/Si_(3)N_(4)coating is prepared and the building energy performance when applying the DMDMD coating in a simple office room is also investigated,taking the hot weather condition of Guangzhou,China as an example.The simulated results show that the Tave+Rave value of the five-layer coating is 8%higher than that of the three-layer coating,and the long-wave emittance of the five-layer coating is 24.8%lower than that of the three-layer coating.And the application of the five-layer coatings on the glazed window could provide the highest energy saving rate of 8.9%when compared with the traditional low-e coatings.

The influence of calculation error of hourly marine meteorological parameter on building energy consumption calculation

The ocean is a crucial area for future economic development.The marine environment has high energy-efficient and ecological requirements for building construction.Meteorological parameters are the key basis for the analysis and design of building energy efficiency.The lack of meteorological parameters for energy efficiency,particularly hourly data,under oceanic climatic conditions is a universal problem.The appropriate calculation methods of hourly meteorological parameters under oceanic climatic conditions are explored in this study.The impact of the calculation errors of the hourly meteorological parameters on building energy consumption is also analyzed.Three key meteorological parameters are selected:temperature,humidity,and wind speed.Five hourly calculations methods,including linear interpolation,cubic spline interpolation,pieceated three-Hermite interpolation,Akima interpolation,and radial basis function interpolation,are selected to calculate the error of the difference method,with Xiamen,Haikou,and Sanya as the locations of meteorological research.Appropriate interpolation methods are selected for the three parameters,and the seasonal and regional characteristics of the errors of each parameter are compared.Different interpolation methods should be selected for different meteorological parameters in different seasons.The error data of the three parameters of different magnitudes are constructed.A quantitative relationship between the sum of squares due to error of the three meteorological parameters and the rate of change of cooling energy consumption is established.The hourly calculation errors of meteorological parameters have an important impact on the calculation of dynamic energy consumption.The energy consumption differences caused by the errors of different parameters are significant.Obvious regional and seasonal differences also exist.This research strengthens the research foundation of building energy consumption calculation under oceanic climate conditions.

Simulation of the Thermal Environment and Velocity Distribution in a Lecture Hall

The rational design of heating ventilation and air conditioning systems is an important means to achieve energy conservation and sustainable development.The simulation of air-conditioning systems with finite element methods has gradually become an important auxiliary means of complex airspace design.In this paper,a k-εturbulence model is used to conduct 3D simulations and optimize the summer air conditioning system of a lecture hall.Various conditions are considered in terms of fresh air temperature and flow rate towards the end to improve comfort.The approach used in this paper could also be used in the future as an auxiliary model to promote the design of other lecture halls and ladder classrooms.

Optimized Simulation Design of Double Glass Curtain Wall Shading System in Hot Summer and Cold Winter Zone

The glass curtain wall is widely favored by the owners for its good appearance modeling effect. In using process,however,excessive energy consumption,low level indoor comfort and other problems of glass curtain wall are often exposed. Aiming at office buildings in hot Summer and cold Winter zone,taking the optimization of thermal comfort of double glass curtain wall in the summer and the reduction of building energy consumption throughout the year as the breakthrough point,using the method of energy simulation analysis,through changing the size of internal shading component in the simulated room,this paper analyzes and summarizes the variation law of its energy consumption value,to explore the relatively reasonable design plan of shading systems of the building with glass curtain wall.

Discussion on Passivhaus Technology System and Its Engineering Application

Passivh aus technology is gradually applied in kinds of projects around the world because of excellent energy-saving effect since it was invented. It is becoming a new tendency of the development of building energy efficiency. In this paper, the concept, contents, and evaluation criteria of Passivhaus technology system are introduced, and the latest domestic and foreign cases using Passivhaus technology system are analyzed. It is concluded that building designers should focus on their profession in the Passivhaus technology system in order to achieve the goal of improving indoor environment quality and building energy efficiency.

Towards a Wireless Sensor Platform for Energy Efficient Building Operation

Currently, the IT-support for energy performance rating of buildings is insufficient. So-called IT-platforms often 'built' of an ad-hoc, inconsistent combination of off-the-shelf building management compo-nents, distributed data metering equipment and several monitoring software tools. A promising approach to achieve consistent, holistic performance data management is the implementation of an integrated, modular wireless sensor platform. This paper presents an approach of how wireless sensors can be seamlessly integrated into existing and future intelligent building management systems supporting improved building performance and diagnostics with an emphasis on energy management.

Simulating dispatchable grid services provided by flexible building loads:State of the art and needed building energy modeling improvements

End-use electrical loads in residential and commercial buildings are evolving into flexible and cost-effective resources to improve electric grid reliability,reduce costs,and support increased hosting of distributed renewable generation.This article reviews the simulation of utility services delivered by buildings for the purpose of electric grid operational modeling.We consider services delivered to(1)the high-voitage bulk power system through the coordinated action of many,distributed building loads working together,and(2)targeted support provided to the operation of low-voltage electric distribution grids.Although an exhaustive exploration is not possible,we emphasize the ancillary services and voltage management buildings can provide and summarize the gaps in our ability to simulate them with traditional building energy modeling(BEM)tools,suggesting pathways for future research and development.

A framework approach to the design of energy efficient residential buildings in Nigeria

The main objective of the Nigerian building sector working on achieving energy efficiency is to decrease energy demand of buildings and thereby reduce the negative implications of urban development and poor energy infras-tructure on people’s wellbeing.One of the key strategies being adopted for substantial reduction of energy demand in the Building Energy Efficiency Guide for Nigeria is the bioclimatic architectural design approach.Hence,in-telligent design of buildings,especially the building envelope,can considerably improve energy efficiency and help to realize heating and cooling targets.The aim of this paper is to promote and encourage sustainable build-ing development in Nigeria by developing a systematic and context-based framework for the design of energy efficient residential buildings.This study adopted a mixed method approach of interviews with 12 architects and 22 householders.Moreover,measurements and observational surveys of 22 existing buildings that fit into three distinct building typologies were conducted.Three existing buildings were investigated using a building simu-lation approach to compare their performances,especially in terms of thermal comfort.The data collected was analysed using content analysis,descriptive statistics analysis,and simulations.The interviews with architects and householders showed enormous potential to reduce residential buildings’energy demand.To achieve this,the interviewees emphasized the need for strong collaboration between all stakeholders in the building sector.Measurements,observational surveys,and case studies of existing buildings confirmed that thermal discomfort in residential buildings and challenges with building design,have a significant effect on the building occupants’wellbeing.The research developed a framework for the design of energy-efficient residential building,which is expected to enhance sustainability,particularly in the building sector.The framework was produced based on the findings from the research data and the review of relevant literature.It involves an integrated process focused on bridging the gap between building stakeholders achieving sustainability in buildings.Ultimately,the frame-work is hoped to guide professionals in the design of energy-efficient buildings and assist institutions on policy guidelines.

Toward cost-effective residential energy reduction and community impacts: A data-based machine learning approach

Many U.S.utilities incentivize residential energy reduction through rebates,often in response to state mandates for energy reduction or from a desire to reduce demand to mitigate the need to grow generating assets.The assumption built into incentive programs is that the least efficient residences will be more likely take advantage of the rebates.This,however,is not always the case.The main goal of this study was to determine the potential for prioritized incentivization,i.e.,prioritizing incentives that deliver the greatest energy savings per invest-ment through an entire community.It uses a data mining approach that leverages known building and energy characteristics for predicting energy consumption of houses that collectively can be considered representative of all residences within an entire community.From this model,it estimates natural gas consumption and savings,and corresponding implementation costs associated with the adoption of the most impactful energy reduction measures.The resulting savings and cost estimates allow us to develop a sequential energy reduction strategy whereby the most economic measures within the whole utility district are addressed.The results show that an energy reduction of 36%can be achieved at a levelized cost of less than$14 per mmBTU($14,780 per MJ),demonstrating the strong potential of this approach.A corresponding Economic Input–Output Analysis captures the cascading community economic impacts of this strategy.The results show that for the roughly 45,000 single-family residences in the studied region,an initial energy efficiency investment of$26M could result in a total cascading multiplier economic impact of$41M and additional economic impacts of$2.2M for the lifetime of the considered energy efficiency measures.

Development of a procedure for estimating the parameters of mechanistic VOC emission source models from chamber testing data

In order to evaluate the impacts of volatile organic compounds(VOCs)emissions from building materials on the indoor air quality beyond the standard chamber test conditions and test period,mechanistic emission source models have been developed in the past.However,very limited data are available for the required model parameters including the initial concentration(C_(m0)),in-material diffusion coefficient(D_(m)),partition coefficient(Kma),and convective mass transfer coefficient(k_(m)).In this study,a procedure was developed for estimating the model parameters by using VOC emission data from standard small chamber tests.In the procedure,initial values of the model parameters were refined by multivariate regression analysis of the measured emission data.To verify the procedure and estimate its uncertainty,simulated chamber test data were generated by adding 10% experimental uncertainties on the theoretical curve from the analytical solution to a mechanistic emission model.Then the procedure was applied to the generated data to estimate the model parameters.Results indicated that estimates converged to the original parameter values used for the data generation and the error of estimated parameters D_(m1)C_(m0) and K_(ma) were within±10%,±23%,and±25%of the true values,respectively.The procedure was further demonstrated by applying it to estimate the model parameters from real chamber test data.Wide application of the procedure would result in a database of mechanistic source model parameters for assessing the impact of VOC emissions on indoor pollution load,which are essential input data for evaluating the effectiveness of various indoor air quality(IAQ)design and control strategies as well as the energy required for meeting given IAQ requirements.