Abstract
Positive Energy Block (PEB) is an emerging paradigm to transform cities into low carbon cities. It is expected that buildings will become the main components of the future energy infrastructure. This scenario demands a structural integration of the cyclical environmental variables in designing our buildings and cities as a whole. However, such an integration continue to be rare due to the dominance of object-oriented approaches. This study contributes to reducing these difficulties by developing a process-oriented approach, focusing on the wind contribution. The assumption posed herein is that the transition towards PEBs should be an opportunity to redefine the rules to organise the built environment structure integrating energy and urban environmental qualities. A case study, involving three public school buildings located in three different urban patterns in Rome, illustrates a preliminary step in developing an integrated platform to orient strategic design solutions towards PEBs. This is done by developing and assessing three indexes: wind form index, wind thermal-loss index, and wind energy production index. The results point out the usability and limits concerning the approach adopted, stressing the relevance of an integrated platform to support decision-makers in planning the agenda to transform buildings as components of PEBs.
Highlights
European Construction Sector Observatory (2018) reports that 75% of the buildings were built before 1990
This study has developed an environmental design approach focused on using of wind analysis to orient strategic design solutions for Positive Energy Block (PEB)
This study developed an environmental design approach focused on using wind analysis at scale to orient strategic design solutions for PEBs
Summary
European Construction Sector Observatory (2018) reports that 75% of the buildings were built before 1990. Though there is still no standard definition of PBEs, a PBE tentatively is a form of building aggregation composed of at least three buildings, which are so effective that they generate more energy than they consume (Magrini et al 2020) This new paradigm has been highlighted in recent studies as an opportunity to accelerate the decarbonisation of the building sector through creative energy relationships concerning buildings, urban and environmental features, (e.g., Cole and Fedoruk 2015; Bulut et al 2016; Sibilla and Kurul 2020a). The prediction of wind speed frequency distribution is a fundamental issue, which has captured the attention of many studies (Mathew et al 2002; Vogiatzis et al 2004) These studies have mainly focused on large-scale turbine applications; while few studies have explored wind energy production potential in urban areas (Culotta et al 2015; Zhou et al 2017). Other studies have stressed relevant issues related to the noise production from wind turbines (Marini et al 2017), the shadow produced by wind turbines on photovoltaic panels (Mamia and Appelbaum 2016), and economic profitability (Waewsak et al 2017)
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