Introduction to the Special Issue on Systems for Energy-Efficient Buildings, Cities, and Transportation

With the increasing penetration of renewable energy and zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs), the integrated energy and transportation system (IETS) is considered a promising solution for achieving net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs). However, the tight coupling and the conflict of interests between the transportation and energy systems increase the difficulty of collaborative operation scheduling. Therefore, this paper proposes a multi-dimensional economy-durability (MDED) optimization method for IETS of NZEBs. The multidimensionality includes multiple subjects of energy, transportation, and IETS, and multiple time scales of day-ahead and intraday. In the day-ahead stage, the comprehensive cost-optimal scheduling strategy with joint intelligent parking lot (IPL) is constructed for the collaborative operation of IETS. In the intraday stage, two scheduling strategies are applied to satisfy the operation of the transportation and energy systems, respectively. For the transportation system, a coordinated scheduling strategy based on charging service satisfaction (CSS) is presented to coordinate ZEVs demands with diverse vehicle types and service manners. And for the energy system, a rolling optimization strategy based on a dynamic economy-health matrix (DEHM) is designed to track the day-ahead scheduling plan. The results indicate that the proposed method resolves the conflict between the charging needs and the comprehensive cost of the IETS system. In addition, the economic potential and coordination capability of fast charging services in IETS coordinated scheduling are verified. Finally, the proposed DEHM has significant advantages for the system cost and health compared to the conventional weighting matrix.

Traditional green building energy efficiency management methods lack real-time optimization and intelligent management and lack effective coordination between systems, resulting in energy waste and limited building energy efficiency optimization effects. This paper proposes a comprehensive approach to solve this problem, combining dynamic energy consumption monitoring, intelligent scheduling, multi-objective optimization, and prediction adjustment to construct an efficient building energy efficiency optimization framework. The building energy consumption data are collected in real time through the Internet of Things (IoT) technology and sensor networks, and the Kalman filter algorithm is used to fuse and correct the data to ensure the accuracy of the monitoring data. The energy consumption prediction model is based on historical energy consumption data and external environmental factors. Long short-term memory (LSTM) neural networks are used to predict future energy consumption demand and provide data support for real-time scheduling. Based on real-time energy consumption data and prediction results, fuzzy control algorithms are used to dynamically adjust the operating strategies of various energy systems in the building to ensure efficient operation of the systems under different conditions. Meanwhile, the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is used to solve the multi-objective scheduling problem to achieve the global objectives of energy conservation, cost reduction, and comfort optimization. The scheduling strategy adopts a dynamic approach based on priority to flexibly allocate energy resources to ensure the coordinated operation of various energy systems in the building. A three-month comparative experiment is conducted, and the method in this paper is effective in improving the energy efficiency of green buildings, reducing energy consumption, and optimizing system coordination. Experimental results demonstrate that the average energy consumption reduction rate is 4.63%, the comfort retention rate is improved, and the system coordination efficiency and response speed are significantly improved. This approach provides an effective solution for green building energy efficiency management, breaks through the limitations of traditional methods, and has substantial practical application value. The method can be implemented by integrating IoT devices and energy management systems in smart buildings. Existing systems can be upgraded to add sensors and IoT connections to enable real-time data collection. LSTM prediction models and PSO algorithms can be deployed to ensure efficient computation and real-time response, thus enabling applications in a variety of scenarios.

The paper presents a new methodology to assist decision-makers in the management of critical events such as earthquakes evaluating the recovery time, and the resilience index of a building system that is a component of the physical infrastructure dimension of the PEOPLES Resilience framework. The interdependencies between building system and transportation network in term of accessibility are modeled. Finally, the methodology has been implemented in a software and has been applied in two case studies: (a) the old medieval center of L’Aquila town and (b) the Treasure Island in the San Francisco Bay area.

Energy performance of buildings: The evaluation of design and construction measures concerning building energy efficiency in Iran

NOTE: The first page of text has been automatically extracted and included below in lieu of an abstract Session 1526 Electronically-Controlled Artificial Sky Dome @ OSU … in Progress Khaled Mansy, Steven O’Hara / Thomas Gedra, Qamar Arsalan School of Architecture / School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK 74078 Abstract Indeed, design of daylighting systems is increasingly becoming an integral part of the design of energy-efficient buildings. In order to accurately design, test, and analyze daylighting systems, a controlled luminous environment is required to simulate different sky conditions, under which a physical model can be tested. An artificial sky dome is needed. This paper reports on the ongoing effort to build an Artificial Sky Dome for the School of Architecture at Oklahoma State University. The paper discusses the technical challenges faced by the team in charge of designing the Artificial Sky Dome. Challenges that relate to the structure of the dome, uniform distribution of light sources, avoiding the star effect, effect of internal reflections, models of different sky conditions, control of sky luminance, and the need for a post-construction calibration of the lighting control system. The construction of the Artificial Sky Dome is expected to be completed by the end of summer 2005. This laboratory is funded by the National Science Foundation, Division of Undergraduate Education, (CCLI) Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement-Adaptation and Implementation. This new laboratory will help integrate the engineering of daylighting systems into the school’s curriculum, with the anticipation that this will nurture the scientific background and design skills of undergraduate students. The secondary mission of the laboratory is to disseminate the same knowledge and/or skills between graduate students, faculty, and practicing professionals. The laboratory will also be an effective venue to integrate teaching and research. 1. Design of Daylighting Systems in Buildings Integration between daylighting and electric lighting systems in commercial buildings may result in a significant reduction in the annual energy consumption and operating cost. Indeed, daylight is a free source of energy. Moreover, it is rather a cool source of light that reduces space cooling load. Despite of this fact, the majority of building designers still does not use accurate design tools to design daylighting systems in buildings. Currently, design of daylighting systems relies on the use of rules of thumb, which are not accurate because they only offer general guidance that is not case-specific. The use of inaccurate design tools results in losing the opportunity of saving energy. Currently used daylighting design tools include, but not limited to, simple formulas, daylighting nomographs, and graphical methods. Each of these design-assisting tools “Proceedings of the 2005 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2005, American Society for Engineering Education”

Efficiency and equity issues in special fees for financing transportation infrastructure

Directional optimization of elevator scheduling algorithms in complex traffic patterns

Geothermal Heat Pump (GHP) systems are heating and cooling systems that use the ground as the temperature exchange medium. GHP systems are becoming more and more popular in recent years due to their high efficiency. Conventional control schemes of GHP systems are mainly designed for buildings with a single thermal zone. For large buildings with multiple thermal zones, those control schemes either lose efficiency or become costly to implement requiring a lot of real-time measurement, communication and computation. In this paper, we focus on developing energy efficient control schemes for GHP systems in buildings with multiple zones. We present a thermal dynamic model of a building equipped with a GHP system for floor heating/cooling and formulate the GHP system control problem as a resource allocation problem with the objective to maximize user comfort in different zones and to minimize the building energy consumption. We then propose real-time distributed algorithms to solve the control problem. Our distributed multi-zone control algorithms are scalable and do not need to measure or predict any exogenous disturbances such as the outdoor temperature and indoor heat gains. Thus, it is easy to implement them in practice. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control schemes.

Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning systems (HVAC) are the main electricity consuming systems in buildings. However, they are the most used systems for maintaining thermal comfort inside buildings. Therefore, approaches that increase occupants’ comfort while reducing energy consumption of these systems are highly required. Renewable energies represent a great alternative considering its significant impact in reducing electricity consumption, thus, minimizing harmful gas emissions. Increased emphasis has been recently put on geothermal energy for heating, ventilation and air conditioning. For instance, Earth to Air heat exchangers (EAHE) could be used for extracting heat from the ground for either cooling or heating. It could have a significant impact on energy saving and bills while maintaining occupants’ comfort. EAHE is basically a buried pipe at a certain depth in the ground where air exchanges heat with soil during its time pass. In the present work, a modeling and sizing study of an open-loop horizontal EAHE system has been conducted to first highlight the required material and its characteristics. An experimental system was deployed in order to investigate the performance and the effectiveness of the system in terms of power consumption. Experiments have been conducted and results are reported to show the precision of the EAHE model.

A stress test of urban system flooding upon extreme rainstorms in Hong Kong

The energy efficiency of urban infrastructure is in large part influenced by the efficient utilization of transportation and building systems. Opportunities for more efficient utilization of transportation and building systems are available in the context of commercial office building/site selection. Office location decision makers have an opportunity to select buildings and locations that potentially minimize building and transportation energy consumption within a given urban context. The objective of the research presented in this paper was to apply a calculation framework for estimating the potential transportation energy and building energy consumption of commercial office building/site alternatives. The calculation framework was applied to case studies of commercial office buildings/sites that represent typical developments found in the transportation and land-use context of the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan region. The framework leverages building energy simulation models and regional travel demand model data to estimate energy performance under uncertainty. Importantly, the calculation results indicate that transportation is a major determinant of commercial office building/site energy performance. Incorporation of the framework into sustainable development policy or market transformation tools (e.g., green building rating systems) could accommodate more performance-based planning of efficient infrastructure utilization.

Resilience is defined as the capacity of a system to resist, adjust, recover and adapt when suffering an external disturbance. Beijing is confronting a serious earthquake risk because severe earthquake disasters have occurred many times in Beijing’s history. Thus, the seismic safety and resilience is the crux of the disaster prevention and mitigation of Beijing. Although many studies have been conducted on the earthquake resilience, operational evaluation methods and tools for regional seismic resilience are still absent. Supported by Beijing Earthquake Agency, the Tsinghua team proposes an operational quantitative evaluation method for community resilience. The assessment of earthquake safety and resilience is conducted to a typical community as a study case. A corresponding system platform is also developed. This research mainly includes: the evaluation system for community resilience; the resilience evaluation for the building system; the resilience evaluation for the transportation system; the resilience evaluation for the lifeline system; and the resilience evaluation for the non-physical system. A software platform for applying the resilience evaluation is developed. As shown in the evaluation results, the total resilience level of the community needs to be improved. Specifically, the transportation system has a higher capacity to meet demands compared with other systems. The resilience level of the building system is low, but its capacity to meet the demands is relatively stable at different seismic intensity levels. The resilience level of the lifeline system is high when the seismic intensity is small, but rather low when strong earthquake occurs, which means its capacity to meet demands is sensitive to the seismic intensity. Based on the above results, several measures for resilience enhancement are discussed with respect to the building system. The seismic safety and resilience evaluation are quantitatively performed in this study, taking the community with several subsystems as a study case. The results can be used as a demonstration to provide a reference for the popularization and application in Beijing in the future.

A generational change is taking place in building transportation systems as manufacturers and maintenance companies begin to integrate their products and services with the technologies of smart buildings and smart cities. Frequently this integration relies on the Internet of Things and cloud services. The diverse and heterogeneous nature of such collaborations requires a common shared semantic understanding of the complex and dense information that may be generated by transportation systems in buildings. The Standard Elevator Information Schema (SEIS) provides this in a format which is both machine and human readable. The role of the schema is to provide the ‘vocabulary’ for these collaborations. At the same time the schema specifies the properties, relationships and validation rules that define the information model, which could form the foundation upon which all elements of building transportation control and monitoring functions are constructed. SEIS is published under the Collective Commons licence and is free to download and incorporate into any product with the objective of reaching the broadest audience. This chapter discusses the origins and features of SEIS and provides a varied set of example applications. Consideration is also given to the issues of cyber security and data protection.

Environmental concern and comfort trigger more and more acoustic specifications and regulations on aircraft impact on airports and on ventilation systems in buildings or transportation systems (cars, trains, or airplanes), which in turn impose lower and lower maximum noise levels to such systems. For instance, turbofan engines have increased their bypass ratio in order to improve the aircraft performance while diminishing the nominal speed of rotation. The jet noise is then reduced, and the fan noise becomes a dominant source of noise, especially at approach. A quick calculation of the overall noise generated by a given fan geometry, either low speed or high speed, would be a valuable asset to any fan design designer and manufacturer prior to any installation in a building or an airplane, for instance. However, an accurate prediction of the sound by any full turbomachinery still remains a challenging goal and a daunting task to be achieved by a direct computation. In the present study, the noise predictions will then rely on a strip theory combined with an acoustic analogy based on the wall pressure fluctuations. For the low-speed fans, the model is an extension of the development by Schlinker & Amiet for helicopters. Turbofan engines induce two additional difficulties to noise modeling: the cascade effects and the duct configuration which are presently modeled.

This paper describes the development of a program in Innovative and Sustainable Design that focuses on transportation and building systems. Transportation and buildings consume approximately 75% of the energy used in the US and significantly contribute to the technical issues related to sustainable energy sources and the environment. The program will be organized into four areas that revolve around the nucleus of innovation, sustainability, and design processes: namely, research, educational, outreach, and collaborative arms. Research teams will design highly efficient buildings, vehicles, and mobility systems for the future. Students will learn design approaches to address the needs for energy-neutral building technologies and an efficient, environmentally friendly transportation system fueled by sustainable energy sources. Outreach efforts will recruit secondary school and community college students into engineering programs and expand visibility for the program. Collaborative projects will provide students and faculty with opportunities to work with engineers, designers, and scientists from other universities, government institutions, and industry on timely and technically important projects.