Building Energy Efficiency Policies Research Articles

Benchmarking building energy consumption for space heating using an empirical Bayesian approach with urban-scale energy model

Calibration of an urban-scale building energy model is crucial for advancing building energy efficiency codes and policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions whereas the accuracy of the model is challenged by performance gaps resulting from sparse data and uncertainties in modeling. An empirical Bayesian (EB) approach, incorporated a probability-based mixed-effects energy model and Monte Carlo Markov chain simulation, was developed to predict and benchmark building energy use intensity (EUI) for space heating, using the metering data of 2020 stochastically sampled district heating substations from a municipal utility database. The limitations, implementations and performances of different modeling strategy, including EB as well as Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE), Maximum A Posteriori (MAP) and Fully Bayes (FB) were compared. The results show that EB strategy achieved superior prediction performance than other strategies on the novel test dataset. The preparation, calibration, and validation efforts for implementing the EB approach were demonstrated. The proposed methodology is recommended as a robust approach for benchmarking urban-scale building EUI, distinguished from other machine learning approaches by requiring fewer training samples, better interpreting uncertainties in the data used, and exhibiting superior generalization capabilities. The proposed methodology was successfully demonstrated through the urban-scale benchmarking of space heating EUI in Beijing.

Comparative analysis of residential building decarbonization policies in major economies: insights from the EU, China, and India

The global building sector, responsible for over 30% of CO2 emissions, necessitates urgent decarbonization efforts. This paper examines residential building decarbonization policies in three major economies—the European Union (EU), China, and India. It provides an overview of diverse policies through policy landscape analysis and delves into the design specifics with a detailed policy intensity analysis of building energy codes, information disclosure, and financial incentives in each region. Our findings reveal a diverse mix of policies targeting residential building decarbonization in all three regions. While the EU and China have long-established diverse policy instruments, India's building energy efficiency policies are relatively recent and limited. Detailed analyses of building energy codes, information disclosure, and financial incentives expose variations in ambition, scope, and implementation, even with shared policy instruments. Significant advancements in building energy codes, particularly in stringency and compliance checks, are evident in the EU and China. Conversely, India faces a notable obstacle with limited adoption of residential building energy codes, impacting its journey towards net-zero. The EU leads in building energy labelling policies, while China and India encounter various challenges hindering widespread implementation. Financial incentives across the three regions predominantly take the form of subsidies, potentially straining public budgets. The study concludes with reflections on the pressing need for future research extending beyond the operational phase of buildings.

Unraveling the Knowledge Roadmap of Building Policy Mixes: A Scientometric Analysis

Improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon emissions from buildings are crucial for achieving sustainable development. To realize these goals, it is essential to adopt a policy mix. However, despite much effort in this field, there is a lack of comprehensive understanding on building policy mixes (BPMs), which challenges building sustainability. To address this research gap, this study attempted to uncover the knowledge landscape of BPM through scientometric analysis. By employing methods such as keywords co-occurrence analysis, clustering analysis, co-citation analysis, and research trend analysis, this study systematically examined the current status, hot topics, underlying knowledge framework, knowledge domains, and frontiers of BPM research. The findings revealed that the existing BPM research primarily focuses on various aspects, including policy-related topics such as building energy efficiency policies and policy instruments, as well as topics like green affordable housing, hindering factors, carbon pricing, use obligation, construction waste reduction, and sustainable construction methods. Furthermore, the analysis identified research frontiers in BPM, encompassing policy considerations (e.g., building efficiency policy, split incentive, carbon tax, and carbon pricing), energy-related aspects (e.g., consumption, green transition), political dimensions (e.g., governance, management), building-related factors (e.g., green building, retrofitting), the innovation system, and the evolutionary game. Based on these findings, this study suggests that future research in BPM can deepen insight into interdisciplinary policy mixes by focusing on policy strategies, processes, and features. This study contributes to a holistic understanding of BPM and offers insightful guidance for both researchers and practitioners seeking to advance sustainable practices in the building sector.

Global climate policy effectiveness: A panel data analysis

The global energy landscape is experiencing substantial transformations, and the energy policies of various countries are also evolving under the influence of economic development and climate change mitigation. The Policies and Measures Database of the International Energy Agency assembles over 7000 pieces of information on energy policy from around the world and classifies them into four categories based on their objectives: addressing climate change policy, renewable energy policy, energy efficiency policy, and building energy efficiency policy. This paper aims to analyze the status quo of global energy policy development from these four aspects and examine the effectiveness of both aggregate and individual instruments utilizing an econometric model based on panel data analysis. Moreover, this paper analyzes the energy policy paths of six leading countries and compares the effectiveness of their policies. The results revealed that global climate policy plays a significant role in reducing carbon emission, while the performance of policies varies among different countries. Based on these findings, this paper provides reference for policymakers to formulate energy policies aligned with global and domestic requirements.

CONSTRUCTION OF BIG MOST IMPORTANT BUILDINGS WITH FRAMEWORK SYSTEM

Buildings with a large runway on the basis of frame-beam systems are often used for assembly and repair of aircraft and shipbuilding, as well as sports facilities and exhibition pavilions. Improving energy efficiency in new buildings is of particular importance and should be at the center of building energy efficiency policies.

Linking Energy Poverty with Thermal Building Regulations and Energy Efficiency Policies in Portugal

Energy-poverty (EP) must be considered an energy-related issue since buildings are a central part of people’s daily lives. Thus, it has an important role in energy-related policy implementation. Even though the European Union (EU) has endorsed general energy efficiency through the Energy Efficiency Directive and Energy Performance of Buildings Directive recast, it was the Clean Energy Package for all Europeans that clearly highlighted EP. The growing concerns with EP have also been emphasised in subsequent directives and initiatives. Despite some regulatory framework and the milder climate situation, the proportion of the population experiencing thermal discomfort in southern and eastern European countries, namely in the winter season, is relatively high, reflecting the poor thermal performance of building stock, low family incomes and high energy prices, among others. The current work analysed the EP evolution in Portugal in the EU context, and the Thermal Building Regulations and Energy Efficiency Policies developed, aiming to add insight into the effectiveness of those policies concerning EP mitigation in Portugal as an EU Member state. Moreover, a critical debate on the potential to lower the EP Portuguese situation was also an objective to pursue. It is plausible to admit that reducing EP by acting on residential building stock, namely through the increase of energy efficiency and comfort, plays a key role in improving the living conditions, namely of vulnerable households and deprived areas. This will also decrease energy consumption and dependence while further promoting a smarter, sustainable and inclusive society, contributing to economic growth.

Informing the planning of rotating power outages in heat waves through data analytics of connected smart thermostats for residential buildings

With climate change, heat waves have become more frequent and intense. Rotating power outages happen when the power supply is unable to meet the cooling demand increase resulting from extreme high temperatures. Power outages during heat waves expose residents to high risks of overheating. In this study, we propose a novel data-driven inverse modelling approach to inform decision makers and grid operators on planning rotating power outages. We first infer the building thermal characteristics using the connected smart thermostat data, and used the estimated thermal dynamics to simulate the thermal resilience during a heat wave event. Our proposed method was tested for the California power outage in August 2020 by using the open source Ecobee Donate Your Data dataset. We found in California the power outage should not last more than two hours during heat waves to avoid overheating risks. Informing the residents in advance so they can prepare for it through pre-cooling is a simple but effective strategy to expand the acceptable power outage duration. In addition to assisting power outage planning, the proposed method can be used for other applications, such as to evaluate a building energy efficiency policy, to examine fuel poverty, and to estimate the load shifting potential of building stocks.

Using Raw Earth Construction Systems on Contemporary Buildings: Reflections on Sustainability and Thermal Efficiency

Although the existence of building energy efficiency policies for several years, studies show that up to 74% of the participant consider their house uncomfortable. European policies favored construction solutions focused on insulating materials rather than other solutions which traditionally were used and proved to be effective. Construction system that uses earth as construction material showed for centuries that it can offer high levels of thermal comfort in a passive way, with a highly sustainable and quasi-neutral environmental impact. With this paper, a study on the thermal performance of three contemporany rammed earth buildings is presented. The aim is to analyze thermal comfort over a critical period of time. It is expected that earth construction proves to be a good choice, creating a sustainable and better integration with the local environment, with almost zero energy incorporation, promoting the local work craftmen and with a construction range price below the common construction systems.

Building stock energy modeling: Feasibility study on selection of important input parameters using stepwise regression

AbstractBuilding energy assessment is essential to accomplish the sustainable energy targets of new and present buildings. Retrofitting of the existing buildings by assessing them through energy models is the most prominent method. Studies revealed that there is still blank information about the building stocks, and these affect the valuation of building energy efficiency policies. Literature also recommends that the existing energy models are too complex and unreliable to predict the energy use. Reliability of such energy models would improve through a better alignment of the input parameters and the model assumptions. The authors hypothesized that the reliability of models would be improved through identification of the most relevant energy use parameters for the building stocks in different regions and models. One of the most commonly accepted methods for detecting the most dominant input parameters is sensitivity analysis, though its shortcomings include the need for a large number of data samples and long computing time. In this research, the Energy, Carbon, and Cost Assessment for Buildings Stocks (ECCABS) model is adopted to identify the most important parameters of the presented model. The research team uses the model that has been validated by studies conducted for the UK building stock. Moreover, by assessing the feasibility study with the stepwise regression to identify the significant input parameters have been discussed. Results show that stepwise regression method could produce the same results compared to sensitivity analysis. This paper also indicates that stepwise regression is considerably faster and less computationally intensive compared to common sensitivity analysis methods.

Embracing uncertainty in building energy efficiency policy: A case study of a building energy standard

Quantified goals for reducing energy consumption in buildings play a significant role in national and international energy policy. Calculations of potential energy savings from different interventions may be unreliable due to various types of uncertainty, resulting in a performance gap between predictions and actual energy consumption. Yet building energy policy continues to rely heavily on apparently robust calculations of energy savings, raising the question of why and how the policy process tolerates uncertainty and inaccuracy when quantification is its central logic. We describe a case study of the development of a new mandatory building energy standard, in which there is a lack of consensus on the energy it would save. We found that when this uncertainty was brought to light, the policy process raised other, unquantified logics in favour of energy efficiency measures. Using literature on calculation and expertise, we discuss how quantification is used in policy-making and how uncertainties are repressed, enabling the energy performance gap to persist. We conclude that broader awareness of the modes in which quantitative and other logics are used in energy policy, and a reframing of the types of energy savings to be made, may serve policy-making better than an illusion of calculative certainty.

A statistics-based method to quantify residential energy consumption and stock at the city level in China: The case of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area cities

The residential sector is a substantial consumer of energy worldwide, especially in China, and therefore a focus of energy conservation efforts. Although cities are basic executive units nowadays, their residential energy consumption (REC) is often overlooked. By revealing this research gap, we develop a REC calculation model at the city level (CRECM) and an improved residential stock turnover model (RSTM) to calculate the REC and residential stock of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) cities. Based on these two indicators, the REC intensity is quantified to measure residential energy efficiency. The results show that 11 GBA cities see a dramatic increase in REC over the past 16 years and REC intensities of most cities have plateaued out. The total REC of GBA is expected to rise until that of Guangzhou and Shenzhen reaches the peak. Also, the over residential stock of GBA has tended to saturation in recent years after significant growth, while some cities (i.e. Zhuhai, Huizhou, and Zhongshan) tend to increase. The gaps in REC among cities can be attributed to socio-economic factors (population, GDP, and residential stock) and building characteristics (unit area and construction vintage). Both CRECM and RSTM proposed in this study can provide robust data support for developing building energy efficiency policies for GBA cities as well as other cities across the country

Creating Statistics for China’s Building Energy Consumption Using an Adapted Energy Balance Sheet

China’s regular energy statistics does not include the building sector, and data on building energy demand is included in other types of energy consumption in the Energy Balance Sheet (EBS). Therefore data on building energy demand is not collected based on statistics, but rather calculated or estimated by various approaches in China. This study aims at developing and testing China’s building energy statistics by applying an adapted EBS. The advantage of the adapted EBS is that statistical data is from the regular statistical system and no additional statistical efforts are needed. The research result shows that the adapted EBS can be included in China regular energy statistical system and can be standardized in a transparent way. Testing of the adapted EBS shows that China’s building energy demand has shown an annual increase of 7.6% since 2001, and a lower contribution to the total energy demand as compared to the developed world. There is also a close link to lifestyle and living standard while industrial energy demand is mainly driven by economy and decoupling of building energy demand with increasing of building floor area, this is due to a considerable improvement of building energy efficiency. The adapted EBS creates a method for China conducting statistics of building energy consumption at the sector level in a uniform way and serves as the basis for any sound building energy efficiency policy decisions.

Energy Efficiency Policies in Non-Residential Buildings: the Case of the University of Bari Aldo Moro

The increase in global energy consumption gives rise to several issues with regard to limited energy resources, supply difficulties and environmental impacts. The main concern is that this trend does not cease to curb its growth, while the common challenge is to reduce energy consumption, thus mitigating its impacts on climate change. In particular, Building Energy Efficiency requires particular attention, as the building sector is responsible for approximately 35% of global energy consumption. Thus, European Union policies have been interested in this field, promoting diverse actions in order to pursue and achieve sustainability across the building sector, such as the allocation of funds for restructuring and for energy refurbishment, as well as regulations and directives concerning energy certification and reduction in the consumption of natural resources. This paper has two main objectives. First, to analyze the role of the building sector at a global and European level and its contribution to climate change, highlighting the main differences between residential and non-residential buildings. Second, to present an ex-ante analysis and an ex-post preliminary results obtained from the energy requalification program applied to an Italian public non-residential building: the Economy Campus of the University of Bari Aldo Moro, with regard to economic (monetary cost reduction) and environmental (energy benefits and greenhouse-gases reduction) savings.

Validation of the climatic zoning defined by ASHRAE standard 169-2013

Climatic zoning has a direct impact on building energy efficiency policies. Currently, most countries adopt simplified weather parameters to define their climatic zoning, with the degree-day method being the most widely used. This widespread use of degree-days has been substantially influenced by the adoption of this indicator by ASHRAE on its climatic zoning, which is a core element for the prescription of requirements for buildings based on their location. However, there is no scientific evidence regarding the agreement between building energy performance and the ASHRAE climatic zones. The objective here was to quantify the mismatch between buildings’ energy performance in each given location and the expected energy performance in the climatic zone they are placed. The study uses a performance-based assessment method relying on building energy simulation and GIS. Climatic zoning performance indicators were calculated based on the energy demand of 52 archetype buildings of the U.S. building stock complying with the ASHRAE Standard 90.1–2013. Results suggest that the stipulated climatic zone misclassifies 10% of the area evaluated, potentially misclassifying highly populated urban areas. These misclassifications have direct impact on the building energy efficiency policies of a given location, which may not be the most adequate for its climate.

Data-driven approach to prediction of residential energy consumption at urban scales in London

Development of energy prediction models plays an integral part in management and enhancement of the energy efficiency of buildings, including carbon emission reduction. Simplified and data-driven models are often the preferred option when detailed information of simulation is not available and the fast responses are required. This study developed data-driven models for predicting electricity and gas consumption in London’s residential buildings at the middle super output areas (MSOA) and lower super output areas (LSOA) with multilayer neural network (MNN), multiple regression (MLR), random forest (RF), and gradient boosting (GB) algorithms, and factors related to socio-demographic, economic, and building characteristics were used as predictors. The results revealed that building characteristics, household income, and the number of households were the most important predictors of electricity and gas consumption. We also found that MNN models have outperformed MLR, RF and GB models in electricity and gas consumption prediction at MSOA and LSOA levels, with R2 values over 0.99 for the electricity consumption model. In summary, this study shows that the MNN models can be a useful tool to assist the formation of energy efficiency policies in buildings at MSOA and LSOA levels.

Beijing and New York City: A comparison of building energy efficiency policies

Building energy efficiency is an important measure for reducing carbon emissions, and it plays a key role in the energy saving strategies all over the world. There is a growing global appeal to improve building energy efficiency due to the pursuit of sustainable development. Reducing building energy consumption and improving building energy efficiency are the main tasks of energy conservation work in China and the United States. We chose Beijing and New York City to highlight the current building energy efficiency policies in two cities. We then examine the differences between them. In New York City, there are more financial incentives, funding channels, participants, and public data available than in Beijing. Using the lesson learned from our investigation of New York City, we make recommendations for the development of Beijing’s policies. To overcome barriers to creating energy-efficient buildings, Beijing should increase energy efficiency awareness, innovate with flexible and feasible incentive policies, and improve data disclosure policies.

Instrument interactions and relationships in policy mixes: Achieving complementarity in building energy efficiency policies in New York, Sydney and Tokyo

Cities are crucial sites for achieving socio-technical transitions in technology and infrastructure systems. Raising building energy efficiency (BEE) through new construction or retrofitting holds particular relevance to sustainability transitions since this requires diffusion of new technologies and energy management practices. In pursuit of this, city policymakers around the world are increasingly utilising mixes of multiple policy instruments. While achieving desirable interactions across instruments is a critical determinant of the potential success of policy mixes, so is the ability to design beneficial relationships across individual instruments to complement the overall functioning or outcomes of the entire mix. These dual aspects of instrument interaction and complementary relationships can be conceived as ‘complementarities’. Empirical knowledge, however, on particular strategies that policymakers may employ to achieve complementarities in mixes is limited. Addressing this gap, we use an adaptive theory approach to identify strategies for achieving complementarities in policy mixes from literature and then examine how these are exploited in real-world policy mixes designed to promoted BEE and retrofitting in New York, Sydney and Tokyo. We anticipate that our suite of complementarity advancing measures might serve as a toolkit for policymakers seeking to drive socio-technical transitions in other areas beyond energy efficiency challenges in buildings.

Instrument Interactions and Relationships in Policy Mixes: Achieving Complementarity in Building Energy Efficiency Policies in New York, Sydney and Tokyo

Cities are crucial sites for achieving socio-technical transitions in technology and infrastructure systems. Raising building energy efficiency (BEE) through new construction or retrofitting holds particular relevance to sustainability transitions since this requires diffusion of new technologies and energy management practices. In pursuit of this, city policymakers around the world are increasingly utilising mixes of multiple policy instruments. While achieving desirable interactions across instruments is a critical determinant of the potential success of policy mixes, so is the ability to design beneficial relationships across individual instruments to complement the overall functioning or outcomes of the entire mix. These dual aspects of instrument interaction and complementary relationships can be conceived as ‘complementarities’. Empirical knowledge, however, on particular strategies that policymakers may employ to achieve complementarities in mixes is limited. Addressing this gap, we use an adaptive theory approach to identify strategies for achieving complementarities in policy mixes from literature and then examine how these are exploited in real-world policy mixes designed to promoted BEE and retrofitting in New York, Sydney and Tokyo. We anticipate that our suite of complementarity advancing measures might serve as a toolkit for policymakers seeking to drive socio-technical transitions in other areas beyond energy efficiency challenges in buildings.

Energy productivity analysis framework for buildings: a case study of GCC region

A new analysis framework is developed and applied to assess the benefits of building energy efficiency policies and programs. One of the main advantages of the new energy productivity analysis is that it accounts for both economic and energy performances of energy efficiency actions using only one metric. Specifically, the approach applies the concept of energy productivity to the building sector and accounts for both value added and energy savings of energy efficiency measures. Moreover, the proposed analysis accounts for all quantifiable benefits of energy efficiency programs including economic, environmental, and social. In this paper, the general guidelines for the energy productivity analysis are first described. Then, the analysis is applied to evaluate energy efficiency renewable energy programs for both existing and new buildings in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. The analysis results indicate that retrofitting the existing building stock can provide significant benefits and can improve the energy productivity of the building sector in all GCC countries and free up large energy volumes and investment potentials to the development of other economic sectors. In particular, the analysis indicates that reduction in energy consumption, peak demand, and carbon emissions due to deep retrofit programs for the existing building stock can double the energy productivity of the GCC region.

The impact of global warming and building renovation measures on district heating system techno-economic parameters

Due to changing weather conditions caused by the global warming and building renovation measures triggered by new building energy efficiency policies, building heat demand in the future is likely to decrease. This effect could consequently impact the techno-economic parameters, feasibility and environmental performance of district heating (DH) systems.The main goal of this study is to evaluate the impact of global warming and building renovation on operational (heat generation) and economic parameters of district heating systems. As a case study, a prototypical district was created based on the district of St. Félix, which is located in Nantes (France). Weather and building renovation scenarios were developed for the 2010–2050 period, with a ten-year time step. Heat demand for all scenarios was calculated with a model based on thermo-electrical analogy, previously developed and validated by the authors, while the network techno-economic parameters were calculated using a tool developed by Veolia Research and Innovation for the internal corporate use.The results indicated that the decrease of heat demand proved to be the highest after the first year of renovation (2020), decreasing by 52% of the reference value (2010). Accordingly, DH linear heat density decreases bellow the profitability minimum for traditional district heating networks. The participation of natural gas peak boiler in heat production increases over the studied period, while the participation of base load biomass boiler decreases, due to the fact that the number of hours with heat demand bellow the technical limit of the base load boiler was increasing. Consequently, CO2 emission levels increased. Heat production costs increased, with higher increase rate for the scenario where the new district heating network is planned, compared to the scenario with an existing network.