Download or read book Optimal Investment Strategy for Energy Performance Improvements in Existing Buildings written by Karthik Ramkrishnan and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Current global efforts for energy conservation and optimization are focused on improvements in energy supply and production systems, and on encouraging the adoption of energy-efficient devices and equipment. However, systematic assessments of economic and technical implications when adopting energy-efficient alternative systems in buildings have not yet been explored thoroughly. The uncertainty about the consequences of investing in alternative energy-efficient systems has led to a prolonged utilization of obsolete building systems (underperforming HVAC systems, inefficient lighting systems, badly maintained and equipment, and so forth). This has led to overall poor energy efficiency, creating considerable burden on the building operation budget.

Download or read book The Power of Existing Buildings written by Robert Sroufe and published by . This book was released on 2019-11-12 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Power of Existing Buildings, academic sustainability expert Robert Sroufe, and construction and building experts Craig Stevenson and Beth Eckenrode, explain how to realize the potential of existing buildings and make them perform like new. This step-by-step guide will help readers to: understand where to start a project; develop financial models and realize costs savings; assemble an expert team; and align goals with numerous sustainability programs. The Power of Existing Buildings will challenge you to rethink spaces where people work and play, while determining how existing buildings can save the world. The insights and practical experience of Sroufe, Stevenson, and Eckenrode, along with the project case study examples, provide new insights on investing in existing buildings for building owners, engineers, occupants, architects, and real estate and construction professionals.

Download or read book Deep Energy Retrofit Guide for Public Buildings written by Rüdiger Lohse and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-04-10 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides detailed information on how to set up Deep Energy Retrofits (DERs) in public buildings, and shares in-depth insights into the current status of the major technologies, strategies and practical best practice examples of how to cost-effectively combine them. Case studies from Europe are analyzed with respect to energy use before and after renovation, reasons for undertaking the renovation, co-benefits achieved, resulting cost-effectiveness, and the business models employed. The building sector holds the potential for tremendous improvements in terms of energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions, and energy retrofits to the existing building stock represent a significant opportunity in the transition to a low-carbon future. Moreover, investing in highly efficient building materials and systems can replace long-term energy imports, contribute to cost cutting, and create a wealth of new jobs. Yet, while the technologies needed in order to improve energy efficiency are readily available, significant progress has not yet been made, and “best practices” for implementing building technologies and renewable energy sources are still relegated to small “niche” applications. Offering essential information on Deep Energy Retrofits, the book offers a valuable asset for architects, public authorities, project developers, and engineers alike.

Download or read book Optimal Design and Retrofit of Energy Efficient Buildings Communities and Urban Centers written by Moncef Krarti and published by Butterworth-Heinemann. This book was released on 2018-03-27 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Optimal Design and Retrofit of Energy Efficient Buildings, Communities, and Urban Centers presents current techniques and technologies for energy efficiency in buildings. Cases introduce and demonstrate applications in both the design of new buildings and retrofit of existing structures. The book begins with an introduction that includes energy consumption statistics, building energy efficiency codes, and standards and labels from around the world. It then highlights the need for integrated and comprehensive energy analysis approaches. Subsequent sections present an overview of advanced energy efficiency technologies for buildings, including dynamic insulation materials, phase change materials, LED lighting and daylight controls, Life Cycle Analysis, and more. This book provides researchers and professionals with a coherent set of tools and techniques for enhancing energy efficiency in new and existing buildings. The case studies presented help practitioners implement the techniques and technologies in their own projects. Introduces a holistic analysis approach to energy efficiency for buildings using the concept of energy productivity Provides coverage of individual buildings, communities and urban centers Includes both the design of new buildings and retrofitting of existing structures to improve energy efficiency Describes state-of-the-art energy efficiency technologies Presents several cases studies and examples that illustrate the analysis techniques and impact of energy efficiency technologies and controls

Download or read book Optimal Energy efficiency Retrofit and Maintenance Planning for Existing Buildings Considering Green Building Policy Compliance written by Yuling Fan and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reducing global energy consumption is a common challenge faced by the human race due to the energy shortage and growing energy demands. The building sector bears a large responsibility for the total energy consumption throughout the world. In particular, it was concluded that existing buildings, which are usually old and energy-inefficient, are the main reason for the high energy consumption of the building sector, in view of the low replacement rate (about 1%-3% per year) of existing buildings by new energy-efficient buildings. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings is a feasible and effective way to reduce energy consumption and mitigate the environmental impact of the building sector. The high energy intensity and requirements of a green building policy are the main motivation of this study, which focuses on finding cost-effective solutions to green building retrofit and maintenance planning to reduce energy consumption and ensure policy compliance. As about 50% of the total energy usage of a general building is caused by its envelope system, this study first proposes a multi-objective optimization approach for building envelope retrofit planning in Chapter 2. The purpose is to maximize the energy savings and economic benefits of an investment by improving the energy efficiency of existing buildings with the optimal retrofit plans obtained from the proposed approach. In the model formulation, important indicators for decision makers to evaluate an investment, including energy savings, net present value and the payback period, are taken into consideration. In addition, a photovoltaic (PV) power supply system is considered to reduce the energy demand of buildings because of the adequate solar resource in South Africa. The performance degradation of the PV system and corresponding maintenance cost are built into the optimization process for an accurate estimation of the energy savings and payback period of the investment so that decision makers are able to make informed decisions. The proposed model also gives decision makers a convenient way to interact with the optimization process to obtain a desired optimal retrofit plan according to their preferences over different objectives. In addition to the envelope system, the indoor systems of a general building also account for a large proportion of the total energy demand of a building. In the literature, research related to building retrofit planning methods aiming at saving energy examines either the indoor appliances or the envelope components. No study on systematic retrofit plan for the whole building, including both the envelope system and the indoor systems, has been reported so far. In addition, a systematic whole-building retrofit plan taking into account the green building policy, which in South Africa is the energy performance certificate (EPC) rating system, is urgently needed to help decision makers to ensure that the retrofit is financially beneficial and the resulting building complies with the green building policy requirements. This has not been investigated in the literature. Therefore, Chapter 4 of this thesis fills the above-mentioned gaps and presents a model that can determine an optimal retrofit plan for the whole building, considering both the envelope system and indoor systems, aiming at maximizing energy savings in the most cost-effective way and achieving a good rating from the EPC rating system to comply with the green building policy in South Africa. As reaching the best energy level from the EPC rating system for a building usually requires a high amount of investment, resulting in a long payback period, which is not attractive for decision makers in view of the vulnerable economic situation of South Africa, the proposed model treats the retrofit plan as a multi-year project, improving efficiency targets in consecutive years. That is to say, the model breaks down the once-off long-term project into smaller projects over multiple financial years with shorter payback periods. In that way, the financial concerns of the investors are alleviated. In addition, a tax incentive program to encourage energy saving investments in South Africa is considered in the optimization problem to explore the economic benefits of the retrofit projects fully. Considering both the envelope system and indoor systems, many systems and items that can be retrofitted and massive retrofit options available for them result in a large number of discrete decision variables for the optimization problem. The inherent non-linearity and multi-objective nature of the optimization problem and other factors such as the requirements of the EPC system make it difficult to solve the building retrofit problem. The complexity of the problem is further increased when the target buildings have many floors. In addition, there is a large number of parameters that need to be obtained in the building retrofit optimization problem. This requires a detailed energy audit of the buildings to be retrofitted, which is an expensive bottom-up modeling exercise. To address these challenges, two simplified methods to reduce the complexity of finding the optimal whole-building retrofit plans are proposed in Chapter 4. Lastly, an optimal maintenance planning strategy is presented in Chapter 5 to ensure the sustainability of the retrofit. It is natural that the performance of all the retrofitted items will degrade over time and consequently the energy savings achieved by the retrofit will diminish. The maintenance plan is therefore studied to restore the energy performance of the buildings after retrofit in a cost-effective way. Maintenance planning for the indoor systems is not considered in this study because it has been thoroughly investigated in the literature. In addition, a maintenance plan for the PV system involved in the retrofit of this study is investigated in Chapter 2.

Download or read book Retrofitting for Optimal Energy Performance written by Tantau, Adrian and published by IGI Global. This book was released on 2019-06-14 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Retrofitting expresses, in a traditional approach, the process of improving something after it has been manufactured, constructed, or assembled. These systems integrate new technologies, new functions, and new services that increase the energy performance in existing private, public, and commercial buildings. Retrofitting for Optimal Energy Performance is a comprehensive reference source that examines environmentally conscious technologies and their applications in advancing retrofitting practices. Providing relevant theoretical frameworks and the latest empirical research findings in the area, it highlights an array of topics such as climate change, energy management, and optimization modeling, and is essential for academicians, students, researchers, engineers, architects, entrepreneurs, managers, policymakers, and building owners.

Download or read book Energy Performance of Buildings written by Sofia-Natalia Boemi and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-11-23 with total page 540 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book analyzes the trends and technologies of green and energy efficient building, identifying strategies for implementing energy savings and enabling the use of renewable resources in residential, commercial, healthcare and educational building sectors. The authors focus on best practices in temperate climates, providing in-depth coverage of urban heat island, climate change and fuel poverty mitigation through architectural optimization, leveraging renewable energy sources and utilization of cutting-edge cooling materials. Pragmatic emphasis is placed on improving the energy performance of existing building stock to meet short and long term objectives of climate and energy conservation strategies. Engineers, architects, designers, students, policy makers and efficiency professionals will all gain valuable insights and ideas from this practical handbook to greening the built environment.

Download or read book Deep Energy Retrofit written by Alexander Zhivov and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-07-13 with total page 588 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides detailed information on how to set up Deep Energy Retrofits (DERs) in public buildings, and shares in-depth insights into the current status of the major technologies, strategies and best practice examples of how to cost-effectively combine them. Case studies from the U.S.A. and Europe show that that Deep Energy Retrofit can be achieved with a limited core technologies bundle readily available on the market. Characteristics of some of these core technology measures depend on the technologies available on an individual nation’s market, on the minimum requirements of national standards, and on economics (as determined by a life cycle cost analysis). Also, requirements to building envelope-related technologies (e.g., insulation levels, windows, vapor and water barriers, and requirements for building airtightness) depend on specific climate conditions. This Guide provides best practice examples of how to apply these technologies in different construction situations. High levels of energy use reduction using core technology bundles along with improvements in indoor climate and thermal comfort can be only achieved when a Deep Energy Retrofit adopts a quality assurance process. In addition to design, construction, commissioning, and post-occupancy phases of the quality assurance process, the Guide emphasizes the importance of clearly and concisely formulating and documenting the Owner’s goals, expectations, and requirements for the renovated building during development of the statement of work. Another important component of the quality assurance process is a procurement phase, during which bidders’ qualifications, their understanding of the scope of work and its requirements, and their previous experience are analyzed. The building sector holds the potential for tremendous improvements in terms of energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions, and energy retrofits to the existing building stock represent a significant opportunity in the transition to a low-carbon future. Moreover, investing in highly efficient building materials and systems can replace long-term energy imports, contribute to cost cutting, and create a wealth of new jobs. Yet, while the technologies needed in order to improve energy efficiency are readily available, significant progress has not yet been made, and “best practices” for implementing building technologies and renewable energy sources are still relegated to small “niche” applications. Offering essential information on Deep Energy Retrofits, the book offers a valuable asset for architects, public authorities, project developers, and engineers alike.

Download or read book Cost Effective Energy Efficient Building Retrofitting written by F. Pacheco-Torgal and published by Woodhead Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-03 with total page 633 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cost-Effective Energy Efficient Building Retrofitting:Materials, Technologies, Optimization and Case Studies provides essential knowledge for civil engineers, architects, and other professionals working in the field of cost-effective energy efficient building retrofitting. The building sector is responsible for high energy consumption and its global demand is expected to grow as each day there are approximately 200,000 new inhabitants on planet Earth. The majority of electric energy will continue to be generated from the combustion of fossil fuels releasing not only carbon dioxide, but also methane and nitrous oxide. Energy efficiency measures are therefore crucial to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the building sector. Energy efficient building retrofitting needs to not only be technically feasible, but also economically viable. New building materials and advanced technologies already exist, but the knowledge to integrate all active components is still scarce and far from being widespread among building industry stakeholders. Emphasizes cost-effective methods for the refurbishment of existing buildings, presenting state-of-the-art technologies Includes detailed case studies that explain various methods and Net Zero Energy Explains optimal analysis and prioritization of cost effective strategies

Download or read book Improving the Energy Performance of Buildings written by Charles Ries and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2009 with total page 61 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study examines how policies to increase energy efficiency in buildings in the European Union and Australia have worked and draws implications for the design of similar public policies for the United States. It appears that effective policies to promote energy efficiency can be devised using information disclosure, building codes, financial incentives, and benchmarking. Insights are presented to help designers of analogous U.S. policies.

Download or read book High Performance Buildings written by M.S. Robinson and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2020-12-17 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a blueprint for action for readers making decisions about how to improve the energy efficiency and performance of new or existing buildings. Suitable for both seasoned veterans and new managers, it takes an objective and orderly approach to what is often a complex, costly, and time-consuming process. The book presents fundamental principles illustrated with case studies. It thoroughly covers the topics in a concise, technically accurate way. The book is designed for architects, engineers, and construction managers.

Download or read book Improving Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings and Smart Communities written by Paolo Bertoldi and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2020-01-14 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These proceedings present fourteen peer-reviewed papers from the 10th International Conference on Improving Energy Efficiency in Commercial Buildings and Smart Communities, which was held March 21-22, 2018 in Frankfurt, Germany. This biannual conference aims to promote and diffuse the concept of energy efficiency in new and existing commercial buildings and to enlarge the market for low consumption and sustainable non-residential buildings. It also covers smart and sustainable districts, communities and cities, since energy systems efficiency and renewable energies are often optimized at the district or municipal level. The 2018 conference focused on advanced and innovative technologies to improve the energy efficiency of commercial buildings, communities and cities as well as the policies and measures by governments at various levels to improve energy efficiency. A particular focus was on Energy Service Companies (ESCOs). The conference addresses energy policy makers at international, national, and local level; academics, researchers and energy efficiency experts; ESCOs, utilities, buildings energy and environmental managers; buildings engineers and architects; and equipment manufacturers and commercial property investors.

Download or read book Financing Building Energy Renovations written by Marina Economidou and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the right set of policy tools, it is generally accepted that governments can play a crucial role in promoting energy efficiency and leveraging more investments in the building sector, especially in the existing stock. Indeed there is a wide range of policies at EU level which require Member States to set a number of regulatory, informative and economic measures with the aim to improve the energy performance of buildings. What is clear is that the existing policy mix needs to be reviewed as experience shows that actual energy efficiency investments in this segment of the building stock neither meet the scale nor the quality aligned with its overall potential. For now, economic instruments appear to dominate the policy framework for existing buildings, while the need for more market action and enhanced private sector involvement is increasingly highlighted as this offers the only sustainable route for scaling up existing efforts. This report deals with the importance of existing economic instruments in leveraging energy efficiency investments in buildings, examines their effectiveness in delivering energy savings as well as relation with other policy types. Based on experiences drawn from current practices, it increases our understanding of the type, scope and mix of economic instruments best suited to tackle demand-side energy use in existing buildings. The report also identifies innovative financing mechanisms and proposes other measures beyond current practices, which can further stimulate the market and offer more scalable solutions.

Download or read book Real Prospects for Energy Efficiency in the United States written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America's economy and lifestyles have been shaped by the low prices and availability of energy. In the last decade, however, the prices of oil, natural gas, and coal have increased dramatically, leaving consumers and the industrial and service sectors looking for ways to reduce energy use. To achieve greater energy efficiency, we need technology, more informed consumers and producers, and investments in more energy-efficient industrial processes, businesses, residences, and transportation. As part of the America's Energy Future project, Real Prospects for Energy Efficiency in the United States examines the potential for reducing energy demand through improving efficiency by using existing technologies, technologies developed but not yet utilized widely, and prospective technologies. The book evaluates technologies based on their estimated times to initial commercial deployment, and provides an analysis of costs, barriers, and research needs. This quantitative characterization of technologies will guide policy makers toward planning the future of energy use in America. This book will also have much to offer to industry leaders, investors, environmentalists, and others looking for a practical diagnosis of energy efficiency possibilities.

Download or read book Sustainable Ecological Engineering Design written by Mohammad Dastbaz and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-05-19 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the impacts of the built environment, and how to predict and measure the benefits and consequences of changes taking place to address sustainability in the development and building industries. It draws together the best treatments of these subjects from the Leeds Sustainability Institute’s inaugural International Conference on Sustainability, Ecology, Engineering, Design for Society (SEEDS). The focus of discussion is on understanding how buildings and spaces are designed and nurtured to obtain optimal outcomes in energy efficiency and environmental impacts. In addition to examining technical issues such as modeling energy performance, emphasis is placed on the health and well-being of occupants. This holistic approach addresses the interdependence of people with the built and natural environments. The book’s contents reflect the interdisciplinary and international collaboration critical to assembly of the knowledge required for positive change.

Download or read book Architectural Energy Efficiency written by Nasrollahi, Farshad and published by Universitätsverlag der TU Berlin. This book was released on 2013-06-14 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Energy saving in buildings through cost and energy-intensive measures, such as the application of additional building materials and technologies, is only possible with a great consumption of resources and CO2 emissions for their production. For low energy buildings, the investment costs, including user costs and governmental subsidies, are generally high, and construction is not always economically viable in consideration of the national capital in the present economic conditions of most countries. For these reasons, it is first of all necessary to apply cost and resource-efficient measures to save energy in buildings and then make use of additional cost and energy-intensive measures by improving the thermal envelope, the HVAC system or by installing energy generating systems. One of the most cost effective and ecological methods of energy saving in buildings is the reduction of energy requirements through climate responsive architecture. Due to the fact that energy saving through the optimization of architecture is not only cost-neutral, resource-efficient and carbon-neutral but also has a very high energy-saving potential, the first and most important strategy to save energy should be an optimized and climate responsive design. Energy saving through optimized architectural design is economically and ecologically sustainable. The development of building simulation science in the last decades has made it easier to study the energy performance of buildings. Tools have made it possible to predict the complex behavior of buildings regarding the climate. Except for the comparison of different building typologies to find the most efficient, there are no other methods to achieve energy savings through the architectural design, which can be applied by a variety of building types and climates. Therefore, in order to encourage the optimization of architectural design, it is necessary to improve these methods which represent strategies to significantly reduce the energy demand of buildings. Architectural Energy Efficiency is a parametric method which separately studies the effects of various energy-related architectural factors on the energy demand of buildings by using dynamic energy simulations to find the, from an energy efficiency point of view, optimum value for each of these. The architectural factors include orientation, building elongation, building form, opening ratio in different orientations, sun shading, natural ventilation etc. The research process that led to the formulation of the Architectural Energy Efficiency method is based on a series of simulations carried out by a dynamic simulation software tool (DesignBuilder) to calculate the energy demands of a building with different variants for a single architectural feature. The aim of the simulations is to find an optimum set of energy-related variables that result in the best and most efficient energy performance for a specific building type and climate. This method of efficiency illustrates the effects different architectural features have on the various energy demands of buildings. The criteria are derived from the application of this method for a specific building occupation and climate, and can be applied in the design process of buildings, which leads to improvements of the energy performance and a reduction of resource consumption. As the architectural design affects the heating and cooling as well as the lighting energy demands of buildings, the optimum value of each factor must be based on these three aspects. The heating, cooling and lighting energy demands of buildings all behave very differently. Therefore, these three energy demands together (i. e. the sum of heating, cooling and lighting energy) must also be applied as a criterion to study the building energy performance and find the optimum value for each architectural feature. The criteria for selecting the best variant can not only be based on the total energy demand, but should also consider the primary energy demand, the CO2 emissions, energy costs (for heating, cooling and lighting), life cycle costs, etc. The application of these findings to the architectural design of buildings minimizes the energy demand, the CO2 emissions and energy costs of the building, does not, however, affect the initial building costs. The advantages of energy saving through optimizing the architectural design are not only the improvement of the building’s energy performance, but also the fact that the energy saving is cost and resource-efficient. This means that the energy demand of a building will decrease without increasing the investment costs of the building and without consuming any resources and energy for the production of additional building materials. The cost and resource efficiency contributes towards the economic and ecological sustainability of a building during the full life cycle.

Download or read book NBS Building Science Series written by and published by . This book was released on 1974 with total page 80 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: