Energy Reduction Measures Research Articles

Urban planning schemes for developing low-carbon cities in the Gulf Cooperation Council region

Sustainable cities aim to achieve a harmonious balance between human socioeconomic activities and the natural environment to foster low-carbon and livable societies. However, there is a significant gap in the literature regarding the role of urban planning in creating sustainable cities, particularly in the Global South, where carbon emissions are expected to exceed 127% of those from the world's most developed economies by 2040. Within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, which heavily relies on fossil fuels for energy generation and transportation, various low-carbon schemes have been implemented to address environmental sustainability challenges. However, the effectiveness of these schemes has been subject to debate, with some critics seeing them primarily for greenwashing and image-building purposes rather than promoting urban sustainability and achieving SDG targets. This study analyzes the implementation of urban planning schemes and their potential in developing low-carbon cities in the GCC region, focusing on buildings, infrastructure, urban form, transportation, and urban greening. Based on desktop research, the study found that the UAE dominates half of the green building market in the region and generates 82% of total renewables. However, wastewater recycling rates remain low, averaging 34% and ranging from 90% in the UAE to 13% in Kuwait. In terms of urban form, GCC cities have population densities that are less than one-third of the 15,000 persons/km2 recommended by UN-Habitat for sustainable cities. While low-carbon transportation through rail and bus transits are concentrated in capital cities, urban greening initiatives for carbon capture and storage are gaining momentum in various cities. This study highlights the importance of integrating energy and water demand reduction measures into land-use planning and promoting sustainable lifestyles among the public.

인공지능 기반 헬스케어 건물의 에너지 효율 예측 모델

Because of global warming, interest in building energy reduction measures and eco-friendly energy use is increasing. Currently, interest in artificial intelligence is increasing as a way to efficiently save energy. The purpose of this paper was to study the building energy efficiency prediction model, by comparing the prediction accuracy of the artificial intelligence model, and using the optimized model. An optimized model was presented by comparing the predicted energy use with the actual energy use of the building, by analyzing the daily energy consumption value and the energy consumption effect, according to the facility field components using the target building. First, the correlation analysis between the data variables confirmed the highest correlation with energy consumption, which shows that the energy efficiency prediction model using the environmental variables of the data could be very limited because the building

Improving operation management performance of air conditioners in offices using data envelopment analysis

Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems account for the bulk of a building's energy use, which means that potentially significant energy savings can be made by efficiently modifying how those systems are operated. Although several studies have demonstrated that optimizing the operation of HVAC equipment in combination with sensor readings can reduce potentially wasteful processes, such efforts are limited to buildings that have or can incorporate additional sensors. As an alternative approach, this paper aims to identify potentially wasted energy and provide suggested improvements for buildings that do not have installed sensors, which is important because such suggestions can extend the scope of energy reduction measures. More specifically, we hypothesized that comparing differences in user operations would make it possible to identify potentially wasteful operating times. Accordingly, we began our study by identifying target days and days for improvement using data envelopment analysis and then detected operational differences by comparing their operating times. Our new method was then applied to variable refrigerant flow systems in an office building as a case study. The obtained results showed that the potential for energy reduction was about 7.5%. These results, which helped determine the appropriate times for automatically shutting down each indoor unit, proved effective in implementing energy reduction measures. The novelty of this paper is that it clarified the energy waste that can be detected based on operating times, which is expected to lead to the development of additional options for energy reduction measures, thereby allowing building owners to implement more effective actions based on the sizes and conditions of their buildings.

Disclosure of environmental sustainability activities by large ski lift firms

This study investigates how environmental sustainability practices and reporting are disclosed by a group of six large ski lift operators across the world (Compagnie des Alpes, CDA (France), Silvrettaseilbahn AG (Ischgl) (Austria), Skistar (Sweden/Norway), Vail resorts (United States), Whistler Blackcomb (Canada) and Zermatt (Switzerland). Different types of practices are assessed. Results show that ski lift operators are highly active even if the extent of disclosure varies across resorts. Publicly listed ski lift operators in France and Sweden provide a detailed sustainability report and have also implemented environmental management programmes. Other firms develop their own sustainability strategies (Whistler Blackcomb, Vail resorts and Zermatt Bergbahnen AG). The practices range from monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions, 100 per cent green electricity, zero emission goals, energy reduction, fuel switching, water consumption, waste management and adaptation measures to climate change. Two ski lift operators show a decreasing trend in Co2 emissions per skier day or energy costs. Some operators report water usage in snowmaking per visitor which ranges between 250 to 1400 litres per skier day. Carbon offsetting and environmentally friendly diesel are also common tools. No ski lift operator actively participates in the UN global compact programme while three provide a sustainability report following the Global Environmental Reporting Initiative. There is an overemphasis on the use of easily available renewable energy sources, while other more complicated environmental concerns such as climate change risk are de-emphasised. Information on the main source of locally generated emissions, the fuel consumption of “piste” vehicles and snowmobiles is scarce.

A Study on the Energy Reduction Measures of Data Centers through Chilled Water Temperature Control and Water-Side Economizer

The degree of integration of IT devices and consumption of cooling energy are consistently increasing owing to developments in the data center industry. Hence, to ensure the smooth operation and fault prevention of IT devices, the energy consumption of cooling systems has increased, leading to active research on improvements in cooling system performance for reducing energy consumption. This study examines the reduction in cooling energy consumption using a simulation by applying chilled water control and a water-side economizer (WSE) system to enhance the cooling system efficiency. The simulation results showed that the energy consumption was reduced by 1.8% when the chilled water temperature was set to 11 °C in a conventional system and by up to 19.6% when WSE was also applied. Furthermore, when the changes in chilled water temperature were applied for efficient operation of WSE, the energy consumption was reduced by up to 30.1% compared to that in conventional energy systems.

Toward cost-effective residential energy reduction and community impacts: A data-based machine learning approach

Many U.S. utilities incentivize residential energy reduction through rebates, often in response to state mandates for energy reduction or from a desire to reduce demand to mitigate the need to grow generating assets. The assumption built into incentive programs is that the least efficient residences will be more likely take advantage of the rebates. This, however, is not always the case. The main goal of this study was to determine the potential for prioritized incentivization, i.e., prioritizing incentives that deliver the greatest energy savings per investment through an entire community. It uses a data mining approach that leverages known building and energy characteristics for predicting energy consumption of houses that collectively can be considered representative of all residences within an entire community. From this model, it estimates natural gas consumption and savings, and corresponding implementation costs associated with the adoption of the most impactful energy reduction measures. The resulting savings and cost estimates allow us to develop a sequential energy reduction strategy whereby the most economic measures within the whole utility district are addressed. The results show that an energy reduction of 36% can be achieved at a levelized cost of less than $14 per mmBTU ($14,780 per MJ), demonstrating the strong potential of this approach. A corresponding Economic Input–Output Analysis captures the cascading community economic impacts of this strategy. The results show that for the roughly 45,000 single-family residences in the studied region, an initial energy efficiency investment of $26M could result in a total cascading multiplier economic impact of $41M and additional economic impacts of $2.2M for the lifetime of the considered energy efficiency measures.

Evaluating the impact of operating energy reduction measures on embodied energy

Annually, 48% of the global energy is used by buildings in their construction, operation, and maintenance, causing significant damage to the environment due to the resulting greenhouse gas emissions. During their life cycles, buildings use energy in the form of embodied energy (EE) and operating energy (OE). In a conventional building, EE accounts for 10–20% of a building’s life cycle energy (LCE), while OE accounts for 80–90%. As a result, the building sector has taken several measures to reduce OE in buildings. These OE reducing measures fail to account for the subsequent increase in EE and might cause an increase in the building’s overall LCE. A systematic review of the literature shows limited research that comprehensively evaluates the impact of design measures aimed at OE reduction on EE for different construction assemblies. In this study, we quantify and compare trade-offs on EE demand, caused by OE reduction measuresfor eight different building wall assemblies across four climatic zones within the United States. The EE and OE demands of the ASHRAE 90.1–2016 benchmark model and its variations were computed using Tally™ and Autodesk® Green Building Studio® (GBS), respectively. The results helped us determine the EE factor (EE spent per unit of OE savings) for different OE reduction measures. Although the calculated EE factors vary across different climatic zones and construction assemblies, these factors show significant EE costs for different OE reduction measures. This knowledge could help inform the design of evolutionary and deep/machine learning-based algorithms to assess and optimize building energy use.

Reliability-Based Optimization for Energy Refurbishment of a Social Housing Building

This paper investigates the influence of a stochastic variation of both energy and economic parameters in an optimization loop applied to a refurbished social housing building. Usually, energy and economic optimization procedures rely on the results of an underlying numerical deterministic model which influences both energy gains and economic figures. However, an analyst must always face the random variation of input and parameter data. The unknown data can represent poor initial information or data that can change in a long time; this is the case of fuel cost and economic indexes in particular. This paper deals with both problems for building refurbishment optimization, the former related to the initial state of a building, and the latter to the energy cost variability. Reliability analysis considers a stochastic variation of parameters looking for solutions that incorporate a risk level; in this case, it deals with optimization objectives related to different impacts on economic, environmental and health aspects. The considered building represents a social house, and the energy reduction measures involve the application of internal insulation layers to the walls and the replacement of existing windows with more efficient ones.

Energy Efficiency or Conservation for Mitigating Climate Change?

Given that global energy use today is still dominated by fossil fuels, there is an urgent need to rapidly reduce its use in order to avert serious climate change. However, the alternatives to fossil fuels—renewable and nuclear energy—are more expensive, and have so far done little to displace fossil fuels. Accordingly, reducing energy use must play an important part in both averting climate change and avoiding the depletion of high energy return easily recoverable fossil fuel reserves. This paper examined both the potential and barriers to the adoption of energy reduction measures, with particular attention to domestic energy and passenger transport. The main finding was that energy efficiency approaches alone are unlikely to deliver anywhere near the energy reductions needed in the limited time available. Instead, most energy reductions will have to come from energy conservation, involving less use of energy-using devices, including private vehicles. Achieving such reductions will require changes in lifestyles, especially for residents of OECD nations.

Energy use and maintenance costs of upmarket hotels

Aimed at examining the relation between energy use and maintenance costs of hotels, face-to-face interviews were conducted under a study to collect reliable energy and cost data of 30 upmarket hotels in Hong Kong, including those in the 4-star and 5-star classes. Analyzing the data revealed that for both normalized energy consumptions and maintenance costs, they were not significantly different between the two classes of hotels. Charts for benchmarking energy performance and maintenance costs were established. Electricity accounted for most of the energy used by the hotels and, among the maintenance cost elements, capital project cost dominated. Neither the cost for capital projects nor that for routine repair and maintenance was correlated with the total energy use. Causes for such missing links between energy use and maintenance costs, which are crucial information for formulation of energy reduction measures, require further investigations.

A Comparative Analysis of Energy Usage and Energy Efficiency Behavior in Low- and High-Income Households: The Case of Kitwe, Zambia

Energy efficiency has been an important topic since the latter part of the last century. This is because adoption of energy efficiency measures has been acknowledged as one of the key methods of addressing the negative impact of climate change. In Zambia, however, the need to adopt energy efficiency measures has not just been driven by the imperative to mitigate the negative effects of climate change but also by a critical shortage of energy. This research looks at households’ energy consumption behavior in low- and high-income areas of Kitwe. Recent studies on the relationship between household energy consumption and behavioral lifestyle have been descriptive, with limited emphasis on the relationships between various variables. In this study, descriptive and inferential statistics have been used to investigate relationships between the two income groups and various energy consumption-related variables such as knowledge about energy reduction measures, energy saving strategies, barriers to the use of energy saving strategies, and the motives for using energy reduction strategies. Methodologically, the study was largely quantitative in nature, with questionnaires administered to a combined total of 56 households. However, key interviews were also conducted that helped us to get a clearer understanding of some of the issues covered in the research. Key findings are that whereas the descriptive statistics show that there are behavioral differences between the two income groups, the inferential statistics show that there is no relationship between income level and the energy efficiency variables. This has been found to be consistent with results from studies done elsewhere. The key lesson is that there is low usage of energy efficiency measures in both low- and high-income areas and that the authorities need to change the way information is disseminated to consumers from the current method of advertising to social diffusion.

Simulation Based Evaluation of Energy Saving Potentials in the Field of Electric Drives Manufacturing

As the production of green products progressively influences customers’ purchase decisions, the development, assessment and controlling of energy sparing processes increasingly has to be focused. Here, one major industry sector that has to be considered is the field of electric drives manufacturing, as the main amount of industrial used energy is consumed in electric engines. Consequently, main research activities in this field focus on the development of stable processes guaranteeing high efficiency levels of the produced motors. However, aside from the products’ energy efficiency, also the energy consumptions of the actual manufacturing steps have to be improved. For this purpose, the present paper presents the main energy consumers within the assembly line of an industrial induction engine. It also explains main energy reduction measures, which were evaluated using a combined material and energy flow simulation. Hereby, the line’s base load as well as the peak load was reduced.

Life cycle energy and cost analysis of embodied, operational and user-transport energy reduction measures for residential buildings

Few studies have evaluated the overall life cycle energy demand of residential buildings, including their embodied, operational and user-transport requirements. To our knowledge, none has quantified the life cycle cost associated with reducing each of the aforementioned energy demands. It is critical to evaluate both energy and financial requirements in order to provide effective energy saving solutions for actors of the built environment.This study quantifies the life cycle energy and cost requirements associated with 22 different energy reduction measures targeting embodied, operational and user-transport requirements. It evaluates a case study apartment building in Sehaileh, Lebanon. Embodied, operational and transport energy requirements are calculated over 50years using a comprehensive approach. Life cycle costs are quantified using the net present value technique.Results identify the most cost effective energy reduction measures and discard some others which are financially prohibitive, namely the installation of photovoltaic panels and the use of hybrid cars. A number of recommendations for building designers, occupants, urban designers and planners and decision makers are provided based on the quantified benefits of each measure. This demonstrates the need for assessments with a broad scope and their potential to inform energy reduction strategies in the built environment.

Does carbon reduction increase sustainability? A study in wastewater treatment

This study investigates the relationships between carbon reduction and sustainability in the context of wastewater treatment, focussing on the impacts of control adjustments, and demonstrates that reducing energy use and/or increasing energy recovery to reduce net energy can be detrimental to sustainability.Factorial sampling is used to derive 315 control options, containing two different control strategies and a range of sludge wastage flow rates and dissolved oxygen setpoints, for evaluation. For each, sustainability indicators including operational costs, net energy and multiple environmental performance measures are calculated. This enables identification of trade-offs between different components of sustainability which must be considered before implementing energy reduction measures. In particular, it is found that the impacts of energy reduction measures on sludge production and nitrogen removal must be considered, as these are worsened in the lowest energy solutions.It also demonstrates that a sufficiently large range of indicators need to be assessed to capture trade-offs present within the environmental component of sustainability. This is because no solutions provided a move towards sustainability with respect to every indicator. Lastly, it is highlighted that improving the energy balance (as may be considered an approach to achieving carbon reduction) is not a reliable means of reducing total greenhouse gas emissions.

Crowd-sourced building intelligence: the potential to go beyond existing benchmarks for effective insight, feedback and targeting

In the UK benchmarking, as defined by CIBSE TM46 [CIBSE. 2008. TM46 Energy Benchmarks. London: CIBSE], has been implemented through report and display mechanisms such as Display Energy Certificates (DECs). Bruhns, Jones, and Cohen [2011. “Cibse Review of Energy Benchmarks for Display Energy Certificates – Analysis of DEC Results to Date.” CIBSE. Accessed January 31, 2013. http://www.cibse.org/index.cfm?go=page.view&item=2346.] have shown that while some TM46 benchmarks can reflect total actual building energy consumption, in education buildings, the ratio of electricity and fossil fuel use is less well represented. This has been attributed to changes in occupant behaviour, equipment use and fabric thermal performance that have not been reflected in updated benchmarks. The headline data available through DECs therefore may not offer sufficient insights or motivation to encourage identification of opportunities for energy reduction measures [Godoy-Shimizu, D., P. Armitage, K. Steemers, and T. Chenvidyakarn. 2011. “Using Display Energy Certificates to Quantify Schools’ Energy Consumption.” Building Research & Information 39: 535–552]. Intelligent buildings could generate crowd-sourced databases of building energy data to offer these insights and provide sufficient disaggregation of energy data to identify systems or measures that impact energy consumption. Anonymous crowd-sourced data may also be able to offer contemporary benchmarks based on current data with sufficient depth to identify areas for improvement, help develop new methodologies for building design and operation and challenge orthodox architectural and engineering practice. This article explores the opportunities and limitations of a crowd-sourced database of building intelligence through analysis of the school data in the CarbonBuzz and DEC databases.

Achieving Net Zero with a 649,848-square-foot Industrial Complex

ABSTRCTThe following is a comprehensive review of what works when designing for net zero. Typically, it is very difficult or nearly impossible to re-commission an existing historical heavy use industrial complex with a 1222-ton refrigeration plant to a net zero energy standard.The subject is a 649,848-sq.-ft. warehouse and office complex in Edison, New Jersey. The energy reduction plan consisted of a solar project consisting of 17,745 solar panels, along with an energy reduction plan consisting of a 20,000 cfm; a BPE energy recovery ventilation (ERV) system; high-speed doors for refrigerated and freezer areas; controls for a 1,222-ton refrigeration plant; and additional energy reduction measures that were engineered by Haglid Engineering & Associates, Inc. This energy reduction plan resulted in the building being successfully retrofitted to become a power producing facility on peak summer days. This subject industrial complex was also nominated for an EBie award.The project was able to achieve a net zero ...

Embodied greenhouse gas emissions from refurbishment of residential building stock to achieve a 50% operational energy reduction

Mitigating climate change through operational energy reduction in existing buildings is of highest priority for policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere. At the same time there is increasing understanding of the significance of impacts arising from material production for buildings. The aim of this work has therefore been to evaluate the importance of embodied GWP for refurbishment for operational energy reduction on a stockwide basis. It is further intended to judge the relative significance of embodied GWP for specific refurbishment measures implemented for operational energy reduction. We study the case of operational energy reduction in the Swedish residential building stock by 50% compared to 1995.The total embodied GWP to achieve the noted operational energy reduction is 0.35 Mt CO2-e/year. 83% of this total is due to ventilation and window measures alone. Compared with previous studies assessing GWP mitigation from operational energy reduction, the “GWP payback time” is just over 3 years.Many types of measure that contribute significantly to achieving the above operational energy goal had average embodied GWP between 10 and 20 g CO2-e/kW h operational energy reduction, notably window and ventilation measures. Indoor temperature reduction (to 20 °C), was also significant for stockwide operational energy reduction but had a very low GWP of 0.4 g CO2-e/kW h operational energy reduction. If this measure proves unfeasible to implement on a stockwide basis then more expensive measures with higher embodied GWP will be needed to achieve the stated energy reduction goal.

Between Research and Practice: Experts on Implementing Sustainable Construction

Despite documented political support for energy reduction measures in Switzerland’s built environment, as well as high international regard for its construction and research sectors, design practitioners and researchers perceive a diverse set of challenges involved in the implementation of green development solutions. Grounded in Science and Technology Studies (STS), observations drawn from 31 semi-structured qualitative interviews conducted with Swiss building industry experts provide insight into the relationships between designers, researchers and public authorities. A series of examples from the empirical data show how regulatory frictions and the challenges of implementing construction strategies into diverse domestic and international working contexts are ameliorated.

Between Scylla and Charybdis: energy, carbon dioxide, and indoor environmental quality

Between Scylla and Charybdis: energy, carbon dioxide, and indoor environmental quality

Characteristics of New Approach for Aluminum Hydrogen Storage Materials

Hydrogen energy research is not only solving environmental issue such as a fossil fuel resources and alternative energy reduction measures, but also tailored for the issues important to the future of the automotive industry are one of the green innovations. In order to achieve a hydrogen energy systems, and infrastructure development, technology development are important elements relating to the use of hydrogen production, transport and storage [1]-[5]. Because hydrogen is a substance that has the advantage of being compared to the bulk storage of electrical energy. In order to disseminate the fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen fuel is in fuel cell vehicles, alternative fuel vehicles fuel tank will need a board hydrogen storage system. [6]-[10] There needs to be improved as a hydrogen refueling infrastructure also temporarily storing hydrogen, the hydrogen with the ability to provide a stable and secure