Daily Carbon Assessment Framework: Towards Near Real-Time Building Carbon Emission Benchmarking for Operative and Design Insights

Abstract

The energy consumption and its related carbon emission of non-domestic complex buildings in an urban context are complicated due to their wide variety of functions and services. A detailed assessment of the carbon emission of such buildings can contribute to decision making for in-operation building management and schematic designs of future proposals. Concurrently, advances in smart meter data analytics and sensor-enabled operational data streams offer the opportunity to investigate this problem at a finer temporal resolution. This research developed a daily carbon emission benchmarking system of a mixed-use building in a UK university. The research period was set at an annual range from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2019 and was segmented by strategic periods in line with the operation schedule of the building. The daily benchmark revealed the fluctuation of the building’s energy consumption and associated carbon emissions. Based on this, a digital twin framework was developed to identify the possible time periods when the building is less carbon efficient and potential building characters that can lead to increased carbon emission in the operational stage compared with what originally expected at the design stage. We discuss how these insights can offer actionable knowledge for user groups such as asset managers and architects.