UBEM.io: A web-based framework to rapidly generate urban building energy models for carbon reduction technology pathways

Abstract

Policymakers are struggling to understand what specific mixes of building retrofitting upgrades are necessary to achieve carbon emission targets. Urban building energy modeling (UBEM) is a bottom-up simulation method to develop policy measures for building stocks. However, the use of UBEM tools requires hard-to-find individuals with training in multiple domains and significant setup time exacerbated through a lack of standardized building use and construction databases. To address these challenges, this paper presents UBEM.io, a novel web-based framework to rapidly generate UBEMs in an automated and scalable fashion with clear handover points. UBEM.io is designed to help any city or municipality conduct low-cost, rapid energy and carbon emissions scenario studies. UBEM.io contributes to practice and research in multiple ways: automated generation of urban-scale building geometries based on widely available inputs; assignment of building simulation templates from a pre-populated library; matching of templates to individual buildings via archetypes; and visualization of simulation results for various carbon emissions reduction pathways. The framework was piloted in Evanston, IL (USA) to build an UBEM comprising 1,363 buildings. It was then successfully deployed with representatives from eight municipalities: Braga (Portugal), Cairo (Egypt), Dublin (Ireland), Florianopolis (Brazil), Kiel (Germany), Middlebury, VT (USA), Montreal (Canada), and Singapore.