Crowdsourcing Urban Air Temperature Data for Estimating Urban Heat Island and Building Heating/Cooling Load in London

Kit Benjamin,Zhiwen Luo,Xiaoxue Wang

doi:10.3390/en14165208

Abstract

Urban heat island (UHI) effects significantly impact building energy. Traditional UHI investigation methods are often incapable of providing the high spatial density of observations required to distinguish small-scale temperature differences in the UHI. Crowdsourcing offers a solution. Building cooling/heating load in 2018 has been estimated in London, UK, using crowdsourced data from over 1300 Netatmo personal weather stations. The local climate zone (LCZ) scheme was used to classify the different urban environments of London (UK). Inter-LCZ temperature differences are found to be generally consistent with LCZ temperature definitions. Analysis of cooling degree hours in July shows LCZ 2 (the densest urban LCZ in London) had the highest cooling demand, with a total of 1550 cooling degree hours. The suburban related LCZs 5 and 6 and rural LCZs B and D all had about 80% of the demand of LCZ 2. In December, the rural LCZs A, B and D had the greatest heating demand, with all recording around 5750 heating degree hours. Urban LCZs 2, 5 and 6 had 91%, 86% and 95% of the heating demand of LCZ D, respectively. This study has highlighted both advantages and issues with using crowdsourced data for urban climate and building energy research.

Highlights

Energy resources in a building usually refer to electricity, natural gas and district heating supply [1]
The difficulty with this is that citizen weather stations (CWS), especially in London, are found primarily in suburban areas, meaning these zones have high representation, whereas other local climate zone (LCZ) don’t
LCZs, percentage differences in summer cooling demand are greater than percentage differences in winter heating demand. These results suggest the reduction in heating by the Urban heat island (UHI) is less than previous estimates

Summary

Introduction

Energy resources in a building usually refer to electricity, natural gas and district heating supply [1]. It accounts for about 40% of the global energy consumption and contribute over 30% of the CO2 emissions [2]. The tonnes oil equivalent has tripled from 1970 to 2010. Fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) account for 90% of global primary energy production [3], which is one of major contributors of carbon emissions. The steadily increasing amount of energy consumption and carbon emissions has raised great challenges for sustainable development such as greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, and reliable energy supply

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion