Developing urban building energy models for shanghai city with multi-source open data

Abstract

Urban building energy modeling is crucial for guiding carbon reduction policies, but acquiring reliable data at the urban scale remains challenging. This study develops a model for Shanghai City, China, by integrating multi-source open data. Eight data sources were collected, including maps, satellite imagery, and GIS data, covering 609,763 building footprints and 539,119 buildings (1.57 billion m2). Spatial analysis, supervised learning, and unsupervised machine learning methods were used to categorize buildings into 63 prototypes, and classification accuracy reached 95 %. Historical satellite data and community boundaries determined the year built for over 95 % of buildings. Prototypes were modeled in AutoBPS using local energy saving standards and simulated in EnergyPlus to derive energy use intensities aligning with government ranges. This work demonstrates a practical data fusion approach to develop large-scale, reliable urban building energy models. Integrating heterogeneous open data sources expands the coverage of open data and improves accuracy. The framework and insights provide a valuable foundation to leverage open data for advancing city-scale energy modeling and sustainability planning.