Review of urban building energy modeling (UBEM) approaches, methods and tools using qualitative and quantitative analysis

Abstract

The world has witnessed a significant population shift to urban areas over the past few decades. Urban areas account for about two-thirds of the world’s total primary energy consumption, of which the urban building sector constitutes a significant proportion approximately 40%. Stakeholders such as urban planners and policy makers face substantial challenges when targeting sustainable energy and climate goals related to the buildings’ sector, i.e. to reduce energy use and associated emissions. Urban energy modeling is one possible solution that leverages limited resources to estimate building energy use and support appropriate policy formation. Over the past few years, there have been only a few review studies on urban building energy modeling approaches. These studies lack an in-depth discussion of the challenges and future research opportunities related to data-driven, reduced-order, and simulation-based modeling methods. This paper proposes Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) analysis of approaches, methods and tools used for urban building energy modeling. Furthermore, this paper proposes a generalized framework based on existing literature for different urban energy modeling methods. The aim of this study is to assist urban planners and energy policymakers when choosing appropriate methods to develop and implement in-depth sustainable building energy planning and analysis projects based on limited available resources.