Assessment of Urban Energy Performance through Integration of BIM and GIS for Smart City Planning

Abstract

Smart city has been becoming nowadays a very popular topic that not only in developed countries but also in developing countries. There are variety of definitions for smart city in different fields and regions. Generally, it aims for a sustainable city development through the optimal management of the resources and potential, offering a comprehensively higher quality life to the citizens. The planning of area energy system is one of the most important issues, which is related to the energy generation, the energy consumption by facilities, transportation system, and any other city infrastructures. Especially for Japan, one of the countries facing the complex issues of an aging society, disaster management and energy dependency need a new methodologies for optimal urban energy planning that integrates all information from these sectors. Smart city with highly developed information and communications technology (ICT) is considered as such an important approach. To encourage the smart city concept in Japan, this paper proposes a “GIS-BIM” based urban energy planning system to access the optimal technical and policy solution for readjust city infrastructure beyond the integrated analysis. Firstly, it introduces the concept of Japanese smart city which covers from urban planning to infrastructure. Secondly, the research proposes a GIS-BIM based urban energy planning system including the database construction and analysis by GIS, the optimal energy system design aided by BIM and 3D visualization with user-friendly interface. Finally, center of Tokyo is adopted as a case study, suggesting the potential to access the optimal technical and policy solution.