Abstract
To comply with the new net zero greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) target set by the United Kingdom government by 2050, different sectors including the industrial sector are required to take action to achieve this target. Improving the building envelope and production of clean energy on site are among the activities that should be considered by businesses to reduce their carbon emissions. This research analysis the current energy performance and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of an industrial building in Liverpool, UK utilizing the Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IESVE) software modeling. Then it has proposed some methods for improving the current performance and reduce the carbon footprint of the building. The results indicated that the installation of wall and floor insulation could decrease the energy usage and CO2 emissions of the building by about 56.39%. Additionally, the production of clean energy on site using solar photovoltaic (PV) panels could reduce the annual CO2 emissions by up to 16%. Furthermore, this research provided some figures about offsetting the rest of CO2 emissions using different international offsetting schemes to achieve carbon neutrality of the building.
Highlights
Climate change is considered as the main reason for many of the extreme weather conditions worldwide such as floods, storms, droughts, apocalyptic fires, the spread of deserts, rising sea levels and collapse of biodiversity [1]
There was a considerable work conducted by the UK government towards sustainable buildings that would promote retrofitting existing buildings to be as energy efficient as possible [5]. This includes the installation of insulation systems and the use of smart technology to achieve the target of carbon neutrality and at the same time improves indoor comfort [5]
Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IESVE) has been chosen in this research for the purpose of predicting the energy performance of the case study building taking into consideration the location of the building, the behaviour profile of the occupants and the current design of the building
Summary
Climate change is considered as the main reason for many of the extreme weather conditions worldwide such as floods, storms, droughts, apocalyptic fires, the spread of deserts, rising sea levels and collapse of biodiversity [1]. There was a considerable work conducted by the UK government towards sustainable buildings that would promote retrofitting existing buildings to be as energy efficient as possible [5] This includes the installation of insulation systems and the use of smart technology to achieve the target of carbon neutrality and at the same time improves indoor comfort [5]. The use of building energy simulation tools by engineers and designers to analyze the building’s performance under dynamic weather conditions has recently become popular to investigate various design options [12] This investigation aims to show a simulation analysis of an industrial building in the UK to evaluate its current energy performance and compare it with different potential improvements to achieve carbon neutrality. The innovation of the current study is providing a comprehensive case study for evaluating the energy performance of an existing industrial building in the UK along with proposing some methods for improving its current performance and conducting a detailed economic analysis of optimization between the proposed improvements and carbon offsetting schemes
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