Embodied Energy Values Research Articles

Embodied Energy and Thermal Performance of Alternate Walling Materials in Affordable Housing in the Composite Climate of Delhi

Meeting the affordable housing shortage in India in a short time has its environmental and social challenges. It not only requires huge resources but is also a big social responsibility to provide economical and comfortable housing for the marginalized section of society. Improper selection of construction materials may lead to the locking up of massive energy as embodied energy of materials and uncomfortable indoor living conditions. The present study focuses on the need for consideration of both embodied energy and thermal performance in the selection of materials for the building envelope in naturally ventilated affordable housing in India. Walling materials form a major part of the building envelope and thus it's crucial to assess their performance. This paper presents an analysis of embodied energy and thermal performance of fly ash Bricks, AAC blocks, and RCC precast panels as walling options in comparison to conventional walling material of burnt clay brick in the composite climate zone of Delhi. This analysis is being carried out for the alternate walling solutions in practice or emerging for mid to high-rise EWS housing construction in this region. The embodied energy values per cubic meter are compared for each wall assembly for the lifecycle stage cradle to gate. Thermal simulation results are presented in terms of indoor operative temperatures achieved by each wall type material and compared with the comfort temperature range prescribed by the comfort model IMAC-R, 2022 to find out the ‘discomfort degree hours’. The results of the study underscore the suitability of fly ash bricks and AAC blocks as sustainable alternatives due to their lower embodied energy compared to traditional burnt clay bricks base case. Fly ash bricks even outperform the base case in terms of thermal comfort. The study discourages the use of burnt clay bricks due to very high embodied energy. The study also strongly discourages the use of RCC panels in the composite climate as they exhibit both poor thermal comfort and high embodied energy. The study findings would help government agencies to make environmentally and socially conscious decisions about the use of walling materials on a large scale in meeting the affordable housing demand.

Embodied impacts of buildings from energy-carbon-water nexus perspective: A case study of university buildings

Despite extensive investment in energy efficiency efforts, the energy footprint of the building sector still contains over 40 % of the world's annual consumption of energy. Although most of a building's life cycle energy use comes from operational activities, a portion of it stems from embodied energy (EE), which is directly expended in a building's construction and indirectly consumed using materials. Because each material consumes not only different amounts but also different types of energy sources, studying embodied carbon (EC) is equally important. The building construction sector also consumes nearly 1/5th of global fresh water, which is becoming a grave concern, given the increasing frequency of droughts and wildfires. The fact that material manufacturing and construction processes also consume water makes it essential to not just assess energy and carbon but also embodied water (EW). The literature recommends evaluating total EW including direct and indirect EW as well as any EW associated with EE use. In this paper, macroeconomic models are utilized to compute and analyze the energy, carbon emission, and water embodied in four university buildings. The results show that the total EE, EC, and EW values for the four case study buildings vary from 13.1 to 51.1 GJ/m2, 1.4–10.0 kgCO2/m2, and 2,820–12,900 gal./m2, respectively. The EE values also show a near perfect positive correlation with EW values. However, the share of EREW in the total EW ranges from 13 % to 16 %, indicating that a decrease in EE use may not help decrease a majority of EW.

Optimization of solar air heaters performance using parallel porous wire mesh: energy, exergy, and enviro-economic analyses

This research conducts an experimental analysis of a solar air heater (SAH) with and without a porous wire mesh, focusing on energy, exergy, and enviro-economic aspects. Measurements are carried out using both a conventional solar air collector and modified one by adding a porous wire mesh. Various wire mesh lengths (20, 40, and 60 cm) are used to determine the optimum one considering different mass flow rates (ṁ = 0.022, 0.033, and 0.045 kg/s). The impact of specific loss sources on exergy efficiency, including exergy destruction between the environment and system components, between the fluid and absorber, and between the absorber and the sun is pointed out. The findings reveal a remarkable enhancement in thermal efficiency, reaching 86 % by using a 60 cm wire mesh atṁ = 0.045 kg/s. The integration of the wire mesh into the SAH results in reduced exergy efficiency due to increased losses and exergy destruction rates. Using 60 cm wire mesh yields beneficial effects on thermo-hydraulic performance by enhancing convection heat transfer and increasing the overall effectiveness of the collector. Enviro-economic analysis shows significant environmental benefits. In Case4, operating at ṁ = 0.045 kg/s, the highest embodied energy value is observed and the highest annual useful energy output of 5480 kWh/year at the lowest energy cost of 0.0105 ($/kWh) is achieved. Additionally, the incorporation of a 60 cm porous wire mesh leads to an annual mitigation of approximately 1370.21 tons of CO2 and an improved environmental cost of 68.51 $/year compared to the conventional solar air collector's cost (28.15 $/year).

Analyzing embodied energy and embodied water for university buildings using input-output-based hybrid method

Buildings present a unique opportunity to not just effectively decrease global energy use but also drastically reduce nearly 40% of global carbon emissions to help mitigate the ongoing climate change. Although most of the building energy use is attributed to building operations as operational energy (OE), a portion of it is termed embodied energy (EE) that is consumed in building construction, transportation, and material production activities. EE of a building, therefore, includes energy consumed directly in onsite and offsite construction and transportation and indirectly through material consumption since each construction material consumes energy in its production and transportation. Like EE, buildings also consume significant amounts of fresh water directly and indirectly as embodied water (EW) in their construction, which is becoming a major concern globally. As fresh water is also depleted in producing and refining energy sources used as EE, a portion of this EW is attributed to energy-related water use (EREW). Most research so far has been focusing on the energy and carbon emission dimensions of buildings overlooking the equally important aspect of water use, which is also crucial for delivering a truly environmentally sustainable building. In this study, an input-output-based hybrid (IOH) model is created to compute and compare EE and EW of 10 higher education buildings and examine the correlation of the calculated EE and EW values. The results demonstrate that the total EE and electricity EE of the study buildings share a very strong positive correlation (r2 = 0.93-0.99) with the buildings’ total EW at the building level. This correlation, however, weakens at the material level. The share of EREW in the total EW ranges from 9-13%, which indicates that reducing just EE may not help decrease EW, and additional efforts may be needed to address EW and reduce fresh water use in building construction.

Analyzing Temporal Changes in Initial and Recurrent Embodied Energy Using an Input-Output-based Hybrid method

Buildings consume over 40% of global energy annually in their initial construction and operation as embodied and operational energy, contributing to over 39% of global carbon emissions. Embodied energy (EE) is consumed directly in construction processes and indirectly using construction materials, each of which uses energy during its manufacturing. All direct and indirect embodied energies used in maintenance, repair, and replacement processes of buildings is termed recurrent embodied energy (REE). Because REE accrues over 50-100-year life cycle of buildings, it may be equal to, or more than the initial embodied energy (IEE) used during buildings’ construction. Both REE and IEE must be optimized to help effectively reduce the environmental burdens of buildings. However, calculating IEE and REE is a data-intensive process requiring temporally representative data that may not be readily available. Consequently, studies may use older data. This paper offers a temporal analysis of the IEE and REE of healthcare buildings to demonstrate how energy source-specific EE values may change over time and introduce errors in IEE and REE calculations if old data is used. Using macroeconomic modeling, the IEE and REE intensities of healthcare building sector are computed. The results indicate that using 5-year and 10-year-old data may underestimate IEE by 5% and overestimate it by 26%, respectively, whereas the REE may be overestimated by 20% and 33%, respectively. The results also show that the share of electricity in EE may be increasing over time. The findings underscore the importance of using temporally representative EE data for energy analysis.

SOFTWARE APPLICATION FOR EMBODIED ENERGY BUILDING CALCULATION: A REVIEW

There are two types of building energy consumption, namely embodied energy and building operational energy. Studies on operational energy have been widely discussed, while studies on building embodied energy are still quite rare to be studied, especially in Indonesia. In fact, the calculation of embodied energy, especially on embodied energy material, is important in the design phase of the building because it can be used as the basis for various determinations of building energy values ​​and carbon emissions generated by buildings due to construction activities. By using the right tools in the embodied energy calculation, the building planner can determine the right embodied energy value so that it can support the building energy mitigation. This paper aims to explain the use of embodied energy building calculation software that have been developed with the aim of providing an overview and supporting research development of embodied energy building in Indonesia.

LCA & LCC analysis of hybrid glued laminated Timber–Concrete composite floor slab system

The increasing request for energy-saving and saving materials and growing concern related to the impacts of materials used on environmental and economical has driven the construction industry toward redesigning critical structural systems and elements. This research proposes solutions for mitigating ecological effects and sustainable built environments. For example, the floor slab is considered the top environmental impact emission after walls compared to other non-load-bearing elements among different building components. Therefore, this research expands the new slab comprising Glued laminated timber (GLT) with concrete as a novel lightweight flooring system. The related methodology includes life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle cost (LCC) analysis. Thus, the environmental and economic impacts of three common slab systems were compared to the proposed slab. The evaluation results revealed that GLT-concrete has lower emissions in all environmental categories, namely: Global warming potential (GWP), Eutrophication Potential (EP), human toxicity potential (HTP), fossil depletion potential (FDP), terrestrial Ecotoxicity (TE), and Acidification Potential (AP). Likewise, Embodied energy value showed that GLT-concrete has a lower value by 26%, 9%, and 24% than Lightweight steel slab, Precast reinforced slab, and Cofradal slab. Finally, the result of LCC shows a new GLT-concrete slab despite having a higher construction cost, but by considering the end of life scenario as reuse, it will have a lower total cost. Thus, current research can expand the assessment of environmentally friendly floor structures and step toward sustainable construction.

Sustainable layout design of steel buildings through embodied energy and costs optimization

Structural design process is a major phase in construction that has an impact not only on the cost of the project but on the environmental aspects as well. Although the majority of structural engineers aims to reduce the structural cost by reducing the weight of the elements, yet a handful of engineers has the information required to consider the environmental impact of their decisions. This paper presents an attempt to develop a multi-objective optimization model for steel floor structural system against cost and embodied energy using genetic algorithm. In addition, a novel study is conducted to address the embodied energy values for structural materials is Egypt. The presented model allows for determining the optimum layout of certain space taking into consideration the architectural constraints imposed on this space. In this optimization problem, the layout configuration of the steel beams, the steel beams profiles, the metal deck thickness, and the concrete slab thickness are determined. The developed model is elaborated along with the results of applying the model on two problems, which shows its ability to address several types of applications.

Development of the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) Method in calculating Embodied Energy Materials on Residential Buildings

One of the benefits of BIM towards a sustainable design is it can make a design system that will calculate the building energy in aim to give alternatives on energy-efficient design. BIM can be utilized to integrate the calculation of Embodied Energy (EE) Building Materials with the Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) method. EE calculation could be easier for architects; hence, the architects can understand the impact of carbon emissions caused by construction activities during the design process. This paper aims to provide an overview of the use of BIM in calculating the EE value of the designed building material on the apartment project. Since the development and construction of flats and apartments, especially in Indonesia, are growing fast, this will give highly environmental impact if it is not properly controlled. The results showed that the BIM implementation in calculating the EE value could be done. Collaboration with other platforms can also be done to make the final calculation, and it will be displayed in attractive data visualizations. The percentage comparison of the embodied energy value in all of the building component materials can also be seen in the results of the analysis. In this case, the highest embodied energy percentage is the structural component, which is 53.16%. It is hoped that the development of this calculation method will contribute to the development of LCA so that EE can be easy to be calculated and have a good impact on the construction industry in the future, especially in Indonesia.

A Study on Embodied Energy of Various Building Blocks in the Construction Industry

Due to the rapid growth of construction activity there is a huge demand of building materials. A large quantity of construction materials are used which consume a huge amount of energy in their manufacturing process. The energy efficiency of an entire building can be gained by selecting low embodied energy materials. The zero-energy building is an ambitious yet increasingly achievable goal that is gaining importance across the world. In this paper, an attempt has been made to calculate the embodied energy values of various building blocks and to suggest a sustainable building block based on the comparison of their embodied energy and economic performance.

Analysis of the impact of vehicle lightweighting on recycling benefits considering life cycle energy reductions

This study evaluates the reductions in energy consumption of vehicle lightweighting, considering the effects of the end of life vehicles (ELV) recycling. For this propose, changes in the material composition of the body in white are assessed by an inventory analysis, including the entire life of the vehicle. The production phase is evaluated considering embodied energy values; the use phase through the mass induced energy consumption; and end of life vehicle recycling considers the part reusing, material recycling, and energy recovery as possible destinations. Moreover, the use of aluminum, advanced high strength steel (AHSS), and carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) as alternative materials are compared. The Japanese vehicle market has been taken as a case study. Furthermore, the user's cost comparison is addressed as an additional assessment variable. Our results show that the effects of vehicle lightweighting on the production and end of life phase are as essential to consider as the benefits generated in its use phase. Moreover, material lightweight must be analyzed jointly with its possible recycling destination, because when the first variable is considered individually, maximum life cycle energy reduction of 23.3 MJ per kg of part to be lightweight can be expected; however, an adequate combination of both variables could almost double those benefits to 51.0 MJ, but also incorrect combinations could be counterproductive guiding to an energy consumption increment of 92.7 MJ.

Sustainable Hybrid Village: Regeneration of Settlement in Jatinegara, Indonesia

Over the past few decades, cities have experienced severe social and economic pressures, which have a disproportionate impact on the urban environment. As a result, the quality environment has decreased, which is characterized by increased CO2 emissions and energy operating costs. Sustainable city development is considered as a step to create a pleasant environment for the community. Therefore, this research is essential to do to regenerate settlements in improving urban quality. This study aims to find a model for developing sustainable hybrid settlements in densely populated areas. The research method with the simulation method uses the Urban Modeling Interface device with three parameters. The modeling results obtained a Floor Area Ratio (FAR) value of 0.43 with a total land area of ± 427,233 m2. The FAR value produces an operational energy value of 3,983kwh / m2 / year and an embodied energy value of 216 kWh / m2 / year. This value is very high from 240 kWh / m2 / year as a standard for energy use. The amount of mobility in the aspect of walkability is 21-68, and 21-69 for the value of Bikeability. The results of this simulation indicate that the residential area in Jatinegara is not yet sustainable.

Life cycle assessment of low costs housing in Indonesia

Housing demands in Indonesia cause an increase in the supply needs of building materials where some of these materials have a negative impact on the environment. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method is used to assess the potential environmental impact caused by housing demand of low-costs housing in Indonesia which its types are standardized to types of 21, 36 and 45. The data of building materials were collected from some developers that involved in development of low-costs housing. Embodied Energy (EE) and Carbon Emission (CE) were used as indicators of LCA. The result of the study showed that EE and CE value is increasing linearly by the addition of housing area. It also found out that material volume has significant value to rise EE and CE. Based on the result, with the same volume of square meters, the amount of energy used to build two types of houses 21 was higher than type of 45 houses.

Embodied energy use in the global construction industry

Building-related energy problems place considerable challenges in securing environmental sustainability. Accelerating globalization further exacerbate regional inequities hidden behind the global supply chains. Therefore, the energy use of construction industry embodied in interregional trade needs to be revealed considering the regional disparities. China, as the largest developing country, suffers from massive spending on infrastructure construction. Therefore, investigating the interactions between China’s construction industry and the rest of the world is imperative. Previous researches fail to provide a holistic view of energy interactions induced by the global construction industry. This study details the global supply chain of the construction industry by merging 31 Chinese regions into the complex global trading network, which is beneficial for making fair energy reduction strategies. Results show that both embodied energy use and direct energy use exhibit a strong positive linear correlation with GDP. Interregional trade increases the inequality of energy use in the global construction industry, in which 81.67% of the regions possess an energy inequality indicator of the construction industry over 0.80, thus proving that the construction industry consumes a large amount of non-local energy. There is no significant relationship between the embodied intensity and GDP, whereas a weak linear correlation exists between intensity and embodied energy use. In China, Shanxi, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia represent a high intensity. There is a weak positive correlation between urbanization rate and embodied energy values. The findings of this research are critical in understanding the connections between province-level construction activities and the global trading network, which is beneficial for customizing and prioritizing policy recommendations for sustainable development of the global construction industry.

Componentwise-embodied energy analysis of affordable houses in India

Building construction industry is one of the prominent sectors of the economy, which is responsible for rapid depletion of natural resources and for increased primary energy uses. Building construction process and production of construction materials consume a significant amount of energy and releases GHGs, which lead to global warming. South Asian countries, including India, are witnessing a major boom in the construction sector, as a result of growing population, increased living standards, and high urbanization. Embodied energy values represent a major share of the total primary energy consumption in the construction sector. This paper represents componentwise analysis of embodied energy for affordable houses in India. Mathematical computations have been done for 22 types of affordable houses having a plinth area of 27–60 m2. The embodied energy values have been calculated for major building components, i.e., foundation, wall, roof, floor, finish/rendering, and terrace/parapet. Results shows that the walls, roofs, and foundations consume about 82–85% of the total embodied energy of the houses. The embodied energy values (EEV) for wall and roof are 39% and 18%, respectively, for single floor/storey houses. These values increased to 50% and 24%, respectively, for a four floor building. In contrast, the EEV values have decreased progressively for foundation and terracing from 25 and 8%, respectively, for single floor house to 11% and 3%, respectively, for four floor building.

Potential of Energy Saving through Modification of Low Energy Housing Models

Globally, building sector currently consumes around of 40 percent of total energy and it is predicted to further rapidly increasing up to 80 percent by 2040. This study aims to investigate some design options to achieve thermal comfort and reduce energy consumption. In Indonesia, building sector consumes around of 37.8 percent of the total nationwide energy consumption. Computer simulations using EDGE and EnergyPlus were performed in this study to obtain embodied energy value and obtain operative temperature respectively. EDGE uses monthly quasi-steady-state calculation method based on the European CEN5 and ISO 13790 standards while EnergyPlus uses dynamic simulation model based on hour-by-hour (or higher resolution) outputs. A single storey building with 12 different parameters and design configurations including one base model were developed for this simulation. Some parameters were evaluated such as wall materials, roof materials, Window to Wall Ratio (WWR), window shading, ventilation opening, solar PV and ceiling fan. The simulation results showed that modification of U-value of wall and roof, increased WWR value, presence of window shading, additional rooster above windows with WWR of 9 percent and additional ceiling fans would optimize the embodied energy saving of building by 20.2 percent. Under these circumstances, final embodied energy saving of building was around of 63,939 MJ. This result was 10,837 MJ higher than that of the base model. Simulation results showed that the operative temperature mostly did not exceed the upper comfortable limits.

Evaluation of Material Selection on the Initial Embodied Energy Value of Low-Middle Apartment in Indonesia

Construction of low-middle class apartment in Indonesia’s big cities is increasing steadily as the government set The One Million Houses Program to overcome the problem of housing backlog. As the construction project increasing, the use of construction materials is also raising. These phenomena raise concern on the energy consumption and carbon emission in Indonesia as buildings are the biggest materials consumers and responsible for up to 40% energy consumption and 33% carbon emission in the world. Moreover, in Indonesia, buildings consume 1/3 of national resources in their construction process. Certainly, this housing program can be considered to have a large contribution to energy consumption and carbon emissions in Indonesia. Therefore, the material selection in low-middle apartments is very important to consider as a factor that can contribute to energy consumption. In order to prevent the increase of energy consumption in the construction of low-middle apartments, prevention efforts in the initial phase of construction can be carried out such as the selection of materials that have low embodied energy. This study aims to evaluate the value of initial embodied energy based on factors in the material selection that can affect embodied energy using the AI-O and WUPA approaches, which are materials and workers. This study uses quantitative methods to obtain embodied energy values on these factors. The method used is AI-O method. There are four case studies that obtained from low-middle class apartments in one of urban cities in Indonesia, which is Bandung.

Development of hybrid life cycle inventories (HLCI) database for embodied energy and carbon intensities of Malaysian construction materials

This paper investigates the completeness of process, input-output (I-O) and hybrid life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis and their applicability as applied to the Malaysian construction materials. The process, I-O, and hybrid analysis were evaluated at the basic materials and products level to identify the gaps between models and further incorporated into the material and product inputs of a selected building. It was found that the largest differences in embodied energy (EE) and embodied carbon (EC) intensities of the materials and products between I-O and hybrid analysis accounted for up to 65.90% and 62.08%, respectively. Further analysis of the EE and EC intensities of the building revealed that the hybrid analysis were significantly higher than I-O analysis estimated to be 44.39% and 43.57% respectively. On average, the EE and EC intensity values using I-O analysis were lower than hybrid analysis due to inherent limitations in this model. Although using I-O data was considered not representative due to inherent limitation, it was considered applicable for energy analysis due to lack of process data in Malaysian building industry.

The level of preconception folic acid intake in Crimea

The improvement of environmental performance in building construction could be achieved by prefabrication. This study quantifies and compares the environmental impacts of a Concrete Glulam Framed Panel (CGFP): the basic configuration of this precast component consists in a Cross-Laminated Timber (CLT) frame structure supporting a thin reinforced concrete slab with an interior insulation panel and covered by finishing layers. The research investigates also alternative design of configuration with the substitution of different insulation materials in order to minimize the Embodied Energy and Carbon Footprint values.The boundary of the quantitative analysis is “cradle to gate” including the structural support system; an IMPACT 2002+ characterization methodology is employed to translate inventory flows into impacts indicators.Results present very low values for carbon footprint (60.63 kg CO2eq m-2) and the embodied energy values (919.44 MJ m-2) indicate this hybrid precast structure as a valid alternative building constructions and processes.A detailed discussion of the outputs is presented, including the comparison of the environmental performances depending on different insulation materials.

Life cycle energy analysis of a metro station building envelope through computer based simulation

This study focuses on the energy auditing of a metro terminal station building envelope which is located at a major city in south India. Embodied energy was calculated using the unit embodied energy values and by quantifying major energy consuming material used for the construction of a metro terminal station building. e-Quest, the energy simulation software was used for modelling the terminal station building and thereby calculated the yearly consumption of operational energy. Terminal station building is modelled with a detailed description of the building in e-Quest, which is being analysed with lighting, equipment’s, thermostat settings, hourly scheduling of occupants and climatic data as the inputs to the model. In assessing the life cycle energy of the terminal station building, recurring energy and transportation energy were also calculated. In addition, this study discusses the comparative analysis on operational energy consumption for the same metro station model for three different climatic regions across India. Further, the present study on life cycle energy is compared with the life cycle energies of different types of buildings obtained from the literature, for an understanding of the energy usage demand per year per capita, between a public utility building, a commercial building and different types of residential buildings.