Retail Buildings Research Articles

Comparative Study on Building Energy Consumption Requirements of Retail Buildings

As one of the biggest parts of total building energy consumption, public buildings energy efficiency catch the eyes of policy makers and researchers. Recently, both national and local energy consumption requirements for public buildings are being developed. In this article, we compared the energy consumption requirements for a major type of public building (retail building) and analyzed the differences and similarities of the requirements. In the end, suggestions for developing building energy consumption requirements are given based on our comparative study.

A Review of the Benefits of Geothermal Heat Pump Systems in Retail Buildings

Geothermal systems are becoming increasingly popular during the surge of green building. However, their popularity is limited by a lack of knowledge and perceived risk associated with a new system. These systems do not pollute the environment because they operate from earth's natural energy and do not alter chemical compounds. Geothermal systems are cheaper in the long run because only equipment that uses combustion requires expensive fuel to operate. These savings counteract the higher price of the equipment installation. Energy conservation also benefits society because there is less damage to the environment. Buildings that are sustainable can be recognized with LEED certification but properties that violate environmental standards can be penalized. Geothermal systems are a good option to improve sustainability because it can improve the quality of the work environment and profitability of business. Moderately sized retail building projects that use them are at an advantage compared to those that do not. This paper provides an in depth study of geothermal system for retails stores in Northeastern United States.

Comparison of Sensitivity Analysis Methods in Building Energy Assessment

Sensitivity analysis is an important tool in building energy assessment to determine the key factors influencing energy use or carbon emissions for buildings. This research is focused on comparing the characteristics of four global sensitivity analysis: SRC (standardized regression coefficient), Morris design, extended FAST (Fourier Amplitude Sensitivity Test) and TGP (treed Gaussian process) method. A retail building located at Harbin (China) is used as a case study to demonstrate the advantages and drawbacks for these four methods. The results indicate that the TGP method (one of meta-modelling approaches) is the best choice in terms of both accuracy and computationally cost. Note that the TGP method needs more time to calculate the sensitivity index although it needs only moderate time for running building energy models. At least two fundamentally different methods for sensitivity analysis are recommended to be performed to provide more robust results in building energy assessment.

Bridging the Knowledge Gap between Fire Engineers and Building Service Engineers - Using the Analytic Hierarchy Process Approach

Architects are confronted with the priority of the early integration of natural smoke ventilation (NSV) and natural thermal ventilation (NTV) objectives in retail building designs due to several reasons including wide range of expertise and lack of fire safety knowledge. This paper presents the perception of fire engineers (FE) and building service engineers (BSE) regarding the conceptual priorities of the early integration for particular design decisions. This was achieved through surveying FE and BSE and conducting an analytical study using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique. An experts’ panel was held for each profession for confirmation. The results showed that FE and BSE have agreed on the most and least crucial design decisions that should/shouldn’t require integration of NSV and NTV objectives in the early stages of the architectural design process.

Assessing the Indoor Environmental Quality in Shopping Areas with a Focus on Shopping Arcades Case of Pune, India

With increased environmental awareness and standard of living, aspects such as built environmental quality and thermal comfort have gained importance. The role of built environment is not limited to just providing shelter but has expanded to providing comfortable healthy environment. The indoor environmental quality and thermal comfort directly affect the health of occupant and utilisation of the space. Moreover, the built environment quality is directly proportional to energy efficiency and sustainability in buildings. Indoor environment quality is an important aspect to be considered in large commercial developments such as shopping centres, where there is a huge footfall. Shopping trends have changed over the years from shopping markets, plazas, arcades, shopping complexes to malls. The change is heading towards a more enclosed and air conditioned environment as compared to the older forms of shopping centres such as arcades and plazas. These arcades and plazas were designed as spaces that opened out and were naturally lit and ventilated; thereby were more energy efficient unlike the malls. However the changing trend is influencing developers and designers towards building malls which would eventually wipe out the arcades and plazas completely from the market. The commercial success of retail buildings is also dependent on the environment that is created. In order to continue using these older energy efficient forms, it is important to evaluate them and identify the associated problems. These problems can then be nullified through appropriate design solutions, upgrading theses spaces to the level of malls. In addition, it is in such typology of buildings where design is crucial as it is more dependent on the climate and environment outside. Pune is a city where various forms of shopping centres exist, such as street markets, shopping arcades, malls etc. The aim of the research is to evaluate the environmental quality in shopping arcades in Pune. Field measurements of environmental quality parameters such as temperature, humidity, wind speeds, light levels, CO2 levels were carried out in various shopping arcades. The study also explores whether lower ground floors can work as shopping spaces. The research identifies problems and design challenges associated with shopping arcades. The above study would give insights as to how environmental quality can be improved through design.Keywords: Aspect Ratios, Daylight, Orientation, Indoor Air Quality, Openings, Shopping-arcades, Thermal Comfort

Effect of cool roofs on commercial buildings energy use in cold climates

We used DOE-2.1E to simulate energy consumption for several prototype office and retail buildings in four cold-climate cities in North America: Anchorage, Milwaukee, Montreal, and Toronto. To simulate the effect of snow on the roof, we defined a function calculating the daily U-value and absorptivity of the roof. Cool roofs for the simulated buildings resulted in annual energy expenditure savings in all cold climates. In Anchorage, the simulated annual heating energy consumptions of the old retail building with a dark versus a cool roof (without snow) are 123.5 and 125.8GJ/100m2, respectively (a 2.3GJ/100m2 penalty for the cool roof). With snow, the heating penalties decreased to 1.2GJ/100m2, leading to an annual energy savings of 7$/100m2 of roof area. For an old retail building in Montreal and Toronto, a cool roof can save up to 62$/100m2 and 37$/100m2, respectively. For a new, medium-sized office building with natural gas heating fuel, a cool roof would save 4$/100m2 in Montreal, 14$/100m2 in Milwaukee and Anchorage, and 10$/100m2 in Toronto. Cool roofs can reduce the peak electric demand of the retail buildings up to 1.9 and 5.4W/m2 in Toronto and Montreal, respectively.

IAQ and energy impacts of ventilation strategies and building envelope airtightness in a big box retail building

Heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in buildings are designed to provide thermally comfortable conditions and to maintain acceptable indoor air quality (IAQ). At the same time, the operating costs of HVAC systems are often a large percentage of the total energy consumption of buildings, which constitutes 40% of the primary energy consumed in the U.S. As efforts are pursued to reduce building energy use, which may involve reductions in outdoor air ventilation rates, it is important to consider the impacts of these measures on IAQ. To better understand the IAQ and energy trade-offs of various ventilation approaches, simulations were performed using the multizone airflow model, CONTAM, for a big box retail store in two climates. Annual energy simulations were also performed in EnergyPlus. Simulations included ventilating at the minimum outdoor airflow rate prescribed by the ASHRAE Standard 62.1–2013 Ventilation Rate Procedure during occupied hours and at a lower rate for 24 h a day. Additional cases included increasing the base outdoor air intake rates and changing the building envelope airtightness. Annual airflow and contaminant (carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, ozone, particulate matter, and a generic volatile organic compound) simulations were performed using emission rates from previous studies of retail buildings. This study demonstrated that ventilating at a lower rate for 24 h a day saved energy compared with ventilating at the higher rate prescribed in ASHRAE 62.1 and that the simulated indoor contaminant concentrations did not exceed common benchmarks or health guidelines.

A Characterization of time-dependent air infiltration rates in retail stores using calibrated multi-zone model

The main goal of this article is to quantify the time-dependent air infiltration rates for two retail stores using a calibrated multi-zone model. The calibration focused on the automatic entrance doors as the flow element with significant infiltration rates. This study examined the application of a modified leakage airflow element for automatic entrance doors to predict physical conditions, including differential pressures and airflow rates across the doors. The results show that the simulation of differential pressures across the entrance doors was consistent with the measured data after the model used the corrected flow coefficient (C) based on an hourly rate of people passing through the doors. The airflow rates through the automatic entrance doors represented 75%–80% of the total air infiltration and accounted for 12%–19% of the total ventilation rates. Furthermore, installing a door vestibule decreased the infiltration airflow rates through the automatic entrance doors by approximately 23%. Overall, the present study proposes and validates a method based on the calibrated multi-zone model to quantify the time-dependent infiltration rates in retail buildings.

Spatial and temporal variations in indoor environmental conditions, human occupancy, and operational characteristics in a new hospital building.

The dynamics of indoor environmental conditions, human occupancy, and operational characteristics of buildings influence human comfort and indoor environmental quality, including the survival and progression of microbial communities. A suite of continuous, long-term environmental and operational parameters were measured in ten patient rooms and two nurse stations in a new hospital building in Chicago, IL to characterize the indoor environment in which microbial samples were taken for the Hospital Microbiome Project. Measurements included environmental conditions (indoor dry-bulb temperature, relative humidity, humidity ratio, and illuminance) in the patient rooms and nurse stations; differential pressure between the patient rooms and hallways; surrogate measures for human occupancy and activity in the patient rooms using both indoor air CO2 concentrations and infrared doorway beam-break counters; and outdoor air fractions in the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning systems serving the sampled spaces. Measurements were made at 5-minute intervals over consecutive days for nearly one year, providing a total of ∼8×106 data points. Indoor temperature, illuminance, and human occupancy/activity were all weakly correlated between rooms, while relative humidity, humidity ratio, and outdoor air fractions showed strong temporal (seasonal) patterns and strong spatial correlations between rooms. Differential pressure measurements confirmed that all patient rooms were operated at neutral pressure. The patient rooms averaged about 100 combined entrances and exits per day, which suggests they were relatively lightly occupied compared to higher traffic environments (e.g., retail buildings) and more similar to lower traffic office environments. There were also clear differences in several environmental parameters before and after the hospital was occupied with patients and staff. Characterizing and understanding factors that influence these building dynamics is vital for hospital environments, where they can impact patient health and the survival and spread of healthcare associated infections.

A Field Investigation of Air Infiltration Rates through Automatic Entrance Doors in Retail Buildings

his paper presents field investigations of air infiltration rates in twelve big-box retail stores and two small grocery stores located in two different climate zones: hot and humid (zone 2a) and moderate to cold (zone 5a) climates. The investigations of the entrance door characteristics, differential pressures across the automatic entrance doors, and number of people using the doors per hour were used to calculate transient air infiltration rates through various types of automatic entrance doors. It was found that the calculated air infiltration rates for retail stores and supermarkets ranged from 40 L/s to 5,800 L/s. Normalized by the door area, the range of air infiltration rates through the automatic entrance door for a supermarket was from 100 L/s.m2 to 3,000 L/s.m2, which was greater than the range previously observed in retail stores from 100 L/s.m2 to 1,100 L/s.m2. In terms of air exchange rates, the air infiltration rates through the automatic entrance doors for small stores, especially in supermarkets and grocery stores, had a larger impact than those rates found in the big-box retail stores due to the size of building volume.

Slovak Retail Facilities in the Postwar Period

Retail units built in Slovakia after the war have continued in the tradition of the functionalist pre-war production, where the emphasis was on the rational operation. Their solutions: disposition-spatial, material-construction and operational were determined by socio-economic and political conditions of a totalitarian regime. Directional management of construction has been focused on building-up sale units in central urban areas, in areas of newly-formed residential dwellings and conditions of rural settlements. Insufficient design capacities led to the creation of typified designs. Sterile cubic solutions conditioned by building-material base of society were reflected in the austere architectural embodiment. The transformation process of the nineties significantly affected overall the retail structure. The possibility of entrepreneurship and free pricing encouraged vendors to build large numbers of different small-scale devices. Globalization tendencies with an internationalization of trade and the free movement of capital caused by the turn of the century building of major shopping centers with super and hypermarkets. The building was focused initially to the remote large settlements and later to wider centers of towns. Architecture of modern suburban retail buildings is marked by utility of function, low-floor construction, high volume mass. By typological and material-constructional solution and by austere architectural expressions shall have the adjective "ephemeral".

Probabilistic assessment of the occupant load density in retail buildings

The occupant load density is a crucial parameter for the design of the means of egress in buildings. In retail buildings the occupant load density is highly influenced by the individual׳s choice and the necessity of a person to visit the store. This causes a high variability of the occupant load density in time. An accurate representation of this variability will provide a basis for enhancing fire safety design. In this paper, a probabilistic approach is used to describe the variability of the occupant load density over a year, based on long-term data of customer frequencies in combination with methods from the queuing theory the distribution of the occupant load density is derived for four different types of retail chains. It is shown that the type of a retail chain has a large influence on the distribution of the occupant load density and that the exceedance probability of current design values in different standards is very small. A method is proposed to derive design values for a performance based design on the basis of probabilistic models for the occupant load density. In addition, the developed probabilistic models describing the number of occupants in a store, allow the assessment of the occupant load density for other types of retail chains, even with incomplete data.

Indoor particulate reactive oxygen species concentrations

Despite the fact that precursors to reactive oxygen species (ROS) are prevalent indoors, the concentration of ROS inside buildings is unknown. ROS on PM2.5 was measured inside and outside twelve residential buildings and eleven institutional and retail buildings. The mean (±s.d.) concentration of ROS on PM2.5 inside homes (1.37±1.2nmoles/m3) was not significantly different from the outdoor concentration (1.41±1.0nmoles/m3). Similarly, the indoor and outdoor concentrations of ROS on PM2.5 at institutional buildings (1.16±0.38nmoles/m3 indoors and 1.68±1.3nmoles/m3 outdoors) and retail stores (1.09±0.93nmoles/m3 indoors and 1.12±1.1nmoles/m3 outdoors) were not significantly different and were comparable to those in residential buildings. The indoor concentration of particulate ROS cannot be predicted based on the measurement of other common indoor pollutants, indicating that it is important to separately assess the concentration of particulate ROS in air quality studies. Daytime indoor occupational and residential exposure to particulate ROS dominates daytime outdoor exposure to particulate ROS. These findings highlight the need for further study of ROS in indoor microenvironments.

Volatile organic compounds in fourteen U.S. retail stores

Retail buildings have a potential for both short-term (customer) and long-term (occupational) exposure to indoor pollutants. However, little is known about volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations in the retail sector and influencing factors, such as ventilation, in-store activities, and store type. We measured VOC concentrations and ventilation rates in 14 retail stores in Texas and Pennsylvania. With the exception of formaldehyde and acetaldehyde, VOCs were present in retail stores at concentrations well below health guidelines. Indoor formaldehyde concentrations ranged from 4.6ppb to 67ppb. The two mid-sized grocery stores in the sample had the highest levels of ethanol and acetaldehyde, with concentrations up to 2.6ppm and 92ppb, respectively, possibly due to the preparation of dough and baking activities. Indoor-to-outdoor concentration ratios indicated that indoor sources were the main contributors to indoor VOC concentrations for the majority of compounds. There was no strong correlation between ventilation and VOC concentrations across all stores. However, increasing the air exchange rates at two stores led to lower indoor VOC concentrations, suggesting that ventilation can be used to reduce concentrations for some specific stores.

Energy and investment intensity of integrated renovation and 2030 cost optimal savings

Abstract Energy and investment intensity of integrated renovation variants were studied to determine cost optimal energy savings by 2030 as a part of new Estonian energy roadmap preparation. For major residential and non-residential building types, 3–4 renovation variants with different ambition were defined, all including the installation of adequate ventilation system in order not to compromise indoor climate. Cost optimal energy performance level of renovation corresponded in most cases to minimum energy performance requirements of new buildings. In most of building types cost optimal renovation cost was slightly below or higher of 200 €/m2 which could be seen as major barrier in residential buildings needing support schemes in order to realize the potential. Cost optimal energy savings were remarkable in heating energy, which was reduced by factor of 3 to 4, but electricity use tended to increase in most of building types while retail and industrial buildings showed strong electricity reduction potential. The reduction in electricity use by 2030 was without and with new construction 7 and −8%, respectively. By 2030 cost optimal renovation saved 16% of final energy, but with the inclusion of new construction the reductions in final energy and non-renewable primary energy were 8% and 0% respectively.

Remote energy management benefits in retail building portfolios

Purpose– The study aims to investigate the effects of a remote energy management service to the energy consumption of retail buildings. The study focuses on analysing the changes in energy consumption after the implementation of a facility service concept where building processes are optimized with a remote energy management system. The paper seeks to demonstrate that remotely operated building management practices, which allow high competence service for all facilities, have a positive impact, beyond traditional facility services, on energy and environmental performance of buildings.Design/methodology/approach– The research analyses the metered energy consumption of two retail building portfolios comprising altogether 44 properties. Additionally, secondary data are collected from archive reviews, observation and interviews.Findings– The research shows that remote energy management service reduced the total energy consumption during the two-year service period by 12 and 6 per cent depending on the portfolio. Electricity consumption was found to decrease by 7 per cent and heating energy by 26 per cent on the average in the first portfolio, and 7 and 4 per cent in the second one, respectively.Research limitations/implications– Variation between buildings was found to be relatively high as the individual characteristics and history of the different buildings inevitably affect the achieved results.Practical implications– The study indicates that remote energy management offers an effective means to reduce the energy consumption and costs, and ultimately climate impacts derived from buildings.Originality/value– The study adds to the knowledge of facilities management in context to energy management and environmental performance of buildings.

Assessing the Level of Safety for Performance Based and Prescriptive Structural Fire Design of Steel Structures

The level of safety in structural fire safety is implemented by combining passive and active fire safety measures. Prescriptive and some performance based codes provide requirements to achieve this level of safety without explicitly quantifying it. Here, a reliability based method is used to quantify the level of safety of a design. A generic representation of the building facilitates the application of the methodology on different buildings and to consider the requirements of the codes. Engineering models are used to consider the effect of fire safety measures including the fire brigade intervention under realistic fire conditions. The uncertainties associated with these engineering models are considered through a probabilistic approach. The reliability of the structure is assessed through an advanced Monte Carlo technique called subset simulation. The methodology is applied for retail buildings. The benefits using performance based codes are addressed and compared with the results of prescriptive codes. The methodology can be used for verifying equivalency in fire safety design as well.

Comparison of Traditional and Bayesian Calibration Techniques for Gray-Box Modeling

Bayesian and nonlinear least-squares methods of calibration were evaluated and compared for gray-box modeling of a retail building. Gray-box model calibration is one form of system identification and is examined here with perturbations to the simple yet popular European Committee for Standardization (CEN)-ISO thermal network model. The primary objective was to understand whether the computational expense of probabilistic Bayesian techniques is required to provide robustness to signal noise, specifically with regard to lower dimensional problems (physical or semiphysical), where model calibration is preferred over uncertainty quantification. The Bayesian approach allows parameter interactions and trade-offs to be revealed, one form of sensitivity analysis, but its full power for uncertainty quantification cannot be harnessed with gray-box or other simplified models. Surrogate data from a detailed building energy simulation program were used to ensure command over latent variables, whereas a range of signal-to-noise and noise colors were considered in the experimental study. The fidelity to the building zone temperature and thermal load was the basis for comparing results. Utilization of uniform priors showed that both methods performed similarly well. Bayesian calibration outperformed traditional methods on noisy data sets; however, traditional methods were adequate up to an approximately 25% noise level. The thermal gray-box model calibration has the intended application of embedded model predictive control, where speed, accuracy, and robustness are crucial. Traditional methods required approximately 100 times less CPU time and are recommended given the model simplicity, application, and expected system noise levels.

Cycle of Informal Traders, a Tradition that does not Require a Building from Practice-research-to Practice

Retail globalization resulting modern building gives an influence to modernize bazaar. Is it appropriate if the government uses the same method when the bazaar cycle consecutively happens in Johar11The name of one traditional market in Semarang. in 1930s and 1970s where modern retail buildings were ineffectively used? There is no theory that can explain this phenomenon. The modern retail building is like a leaky container. Initially the concept of retail in United Kingdom is like a bazaar. The bazaar in Semarang was a tourist destination in 1950 just like bazaar in other countries now. A next collaboration research needs to conduct with United Kingdom and other countries that make the bazaar as a tourist asset.

Chronic health risks in retail buildings and their dependence on ventilation rates and filtration efficiencies

Background-Inhalation exposures to indoor pollutants in non-residential environments contribute largely to total daily exposures. Prioritizing pollutants to be controlled by energy-intensive methods (i.e.ventilation and filtration) is key to reducing the total chronic disease burden and achieve energy efficiency in retail buildings. Objective-Our objective was to model exposure to indoor pollutants measured in retail environments for customers and employees, and assess the role of ventilation and filtration in mitigating this exposure. Methods-Measured concentrations of pollutants in 140 stores in the U.S., available methods (IND and ID approaches) and toxicological data were employed in Monte Carlo simulations to calculate disability-adjusted-life-years (DALYs). Indoor emission factors for pollutants were calculated to assess the change in health risks under 9 scenarios of ventilation rates and filtration efficiencies. Results were compared with DALYs found in residences. Results-The estimated average DALYs due to PM2.5 and acrolein exposure contributed the largest to annual health impacts, with an estimated 122 DALYs per 100,000 persons, divided equally between PM2.5 and acrolein.Carbon tetrachloride, formaldehyde and ozone accounted for the vast majority of the cancer health effects, contributing for a total of 10 DALYs per 100,000 persons annually. Increasing the filtration efficiency, while reducing infiltration rate to a minimum, is found to be the most energy efficient method to decrease DALYs from PM2.5 exposure. As for acrolein, increasing the ventilation rates in the retail stores could not drive acrolein concentrations below the OEHHA chronic REL. Comparing the findings from this study to DALYs reported by Logue et al. (2012) for residences revealed that PM2.5 and acrolein are two common contaminants of concerns. Conclusions-This study found that polluatnt control startegies should focus on mitigating exposure to PM2.5 and acrolein. Cumulative health burden from all indoor pollutants contributed to 146 DALYs per 100,000 persons annually.