How to get your feet wet: Integrating urban water and building engineering for low-energy domestic hot water systems

Abstract

Thanks to intense research efforts, modern low-energy buildings consume only a fraction of the space heating loads of their older counterparts. However, reducing their energy footprint further requires optimization of domestic hot water systems. This is a difficult task, because the relationship between water and energy in domestic systems is intricate and complex. In general, the intrinsic uncertainty and variability of water demand makes the planning and assessment of new technologies challenging, but also risks related for instance to water pathogens like Legionella pneumophila impose trade-offs that diminish the performance of energy-saving measures. In this short communication, we argue that truly sustainable solutions will only be found if a multi-scale, multi-disciplinary mindset is adopted by the community. We show how the collaboration and knowledge integration between experts of various fields, notably urban water specialists and building engineers, is a prerequisite to resolve some of the most pressing issues on the way to optimizing domestic hot water systems. Through concrete examples, we describe how a new, common modeling framework has already triggered the required knowledge integration, and how it could be expanded further to integrate additional disciplines.