Abstract
Because of their significant energy consumption and its economic and environmental impacts, existing buildings offer decision makers opportunities and challenges at the same time. In fact, there is a worldwide effort to improve the energy performance of the existing buildings as well as the new ones to achieve zero-energy buildings. In this paper, a framework for retrofitting existing buildings to help achieve the goal of zero-energy buildings is presented. The framework details the different steps required to develop and implement a successful retrofitting plan for both residential and commercial buildings. This includes data collection, life cycle cost calculation, building simulation, and multi-criteria decision making using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). At the end of the paper, a case study is detailed to show the different steps necessary to select a successful retrofitting plan that reflects the decision maker’s objectives. The case study resulted in a retrofitting plan that offers a yearly energy savings of 30% and a payback period of 2.2 years.
Highlights
CO2 emissions, global warming, air pollution, resource depletion, and growing population are serious and threatening challenges facing humanity nowadays
The cooling requirement was retrieved from the software after estimating the annual energy consumption after each retrofitting plan (Figure 3)
Cooling load parameters and the different alternatives for building retrofitting measures were added to the thermal load constraint to select those corresponding to the optimum air conditioner capacity
Summary
CO2 emissions, global warming, air pollution, resource depletion, and growing population are serious and threatening challenges facing humanity nowadays. At the current population growth rate and increasing energy demand for housing and improving quality of living standards, it is predicted that the current primary energy sources will be depleted in less than 134 years [1]. One of the major contributors of CO2 emissions and energy consumers is buildings. The building sector in the U.S and Europe represents 39% and 40% of the energy consumption and 38% and 36% of the CO2 emissions, respectively [2]. Buildings consume energy mainly for lighting, electrical equipment, and mainly thermal comfort (cooling, heating), which represent a large proportion of building energy consumption [3]. Governments, private institutions, environmentalists, and researchers around the globe are researching ways to reduce the adverse effects of consuming energy and emitting CO2 by creating strategic plans, national frameworks, building codes, and energy performance rating systems to help existing as well as new buildings become zero-energy buildings (ZEBs)
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