Evaluating carbon emissions from the operation of historic dwellings in cities based on an intelligent management platform

Abstract

Historic dwellings in cities are considered to be an important resource on the way to carbon neutrality because of their great potential for low-carbon renewal. However, in addition to obligatory heritage conservation requirements, there is no uniformity in historic dwellings’ operation mode and conditioning equipment, which means detailed carbon emissions accounting is critical but challenging. To estimate the spatio-temporal distribution of carbon emissions from historic dwellings and thus support the development of decarbonization retrofit strategies, this research proposed a low-interventional carbon footprint accounting system based on a digital twin management platform. Multiple digital technologies are applied to monitor and evaluate the occupants’ lifestyles, indoor environment, user location, and equipment energy consumption. Based on backend algorithms, the spatio-temporal distribution of carbon emissions is inserted into the building plan to graphically present the evaluation results. Compared with traditional simulation methods, the proposed system enables the automatic updating of energy accounting parameters by fusing multi-source data into one platform, improving accounting efficiency and accuracy simultaneously. A case study in China proves the outstanding performance of the accuracy of accounting results, with an approximate daily spatial error of 20 % and a total accounting error of less than 15 %.