The Impact of Stakeholder Preferences in Multicriteria Evaluation for the Retrofitting of Office Buildings in Italy

Author(s):  
Giuseppe Pinto ◽  
Alfonso Capozzoli ◽  
Marco Savino Piscitelli ◽  
Laura Savoldi
2021 ◽  
pp. 147715352098742
Author(s):  
FŞ Yilmaz

Office buildings are building typologies where efficient and optimal use of lighting energy is crucial while providing comfortable visual environments. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of diverse architectural design alternatives on lighting energy requirements and lighting energy saving possibilities through a case study. In this study, a total of 3888 design alternatives are investigated in a comparative way in terms of daylighting system design alternatives, artificial lighting system design scenarios, artificial lighting system control types and shading system control options. Introducing the adaptation process of the EN 15193-1:2017 standard for Turkey’s specific climatic and geographical conditions and considering diverse lighting design scenarios, results of this parametric study aim to underline the significance of architectural design strategies in office buildings for the reduction of lighting energy requirements.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (8) ◽  
pp. 2064
Author(s):  
Jin-Hee Kim ◽  
Seong-Koo Son ◽  
Gyeong-Seok Choi ◽  
Young-Tag Kim ◽  
Sung-Bum Kim ◽  
...  

Recently, there have been significant concerns regarding excessive energy use in office buildings with a large window-to-wall ratio (WWR) because of the curtain wall structure. However, prior research has confirmed that the impact of the window area on energy consumption varies depending on building size. A newly proposed window-to-floor ratio (WFR) correlates better with energy consumption in the building. In this paper, we derived the correlation by analyzing a simulation using EnergyPlus, and the results are as follows. In the case of small buildings, the results of this study showed that the WWR and energy requirement increase proportionally, and the smaller the size is, the higher the energy sensitivity will be. However, results also confirmed that this correlation was not established for buildings approximately 3600 m2 or larger. Nevertheless, from analyzing the correlation between the WFR and the energy requirements, it could be deduced that energy required increased proportionally when the WFR was 0.1 or higher. On the other hand, the correlation between WWR, U-value, solar heat gain coefficient (SHGC), and material property values of windows had little effect on energy when the WWR was 20%, and the highest effect was seen at a WWR of 100%. Further, with an SHGC below 0.3, the energy requirement decreased with an increasing WWR, regardless of U-value. In addition, we confirmed the need for in-depth research on the impact of the windows’ U-value, SHGC, and WWR, and this will be verified through future studies. In future studies on window performance, U-value, SHGC, visible light transmittance (VLT), wall U-value as sensitivity variables, and correlation between WFR and building size will be examined.


Buildings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 96
Author(s):  
Paul Mathew ◽  
Lino Sanchez ◽  
Sang Hoon Lee ◽  
Travis Walter

Increasing concern over higher frequency extreme weather events is driving a push towards a more resilient built environment. In recent years there has been growing interest in understanding how to evaluate, measure, and improve building energy resilience, i.e., the ability of a building to provide energy-related services in the event of a local or regional power outage. In addition to human health and safety, many stakeholders are keenly interested in the ability of a building to allow continuity of operations and minimize business disruption. Office buildings are subject to significant economic losses when building operations are disrupted due to a power outage. We propose “occupant hours lost” (OHL) as a means to measure the business productivity lost as the result of a power outage in office buildings. OHL is determined based on indoor conditions in each space for each hour during a power outage, and then aggregated spatially and temporally to determine the whole building OHL. We used quasi-Monte Carlo parametric energy simulations to demonstrate how the OHL metric varies due to different building characteristics across different climate zones and seasons. The simulation dataset was then used to develop simple regression models for assessing the impact of ten key building characteristics on OHL. The most impactful were window-to-wall ratio and window characteristics. The regression models show promise as a simple means to assess and screen for resilience using basic building characteristics, especially for non-critical facilities where it may not be viable to conduct detailed engineering analysis.


Author(s):  
Dongsu Kim ◽  
Heejin Cho ◽  
Rogelio Luck

This study evaluates potential aggregate effects of net-zero energy building (NZEB) implementations on the electrical grid in simulation-based analysis. Many studies have been conducted on how effective NZEB designs can be achieved, however the potential impact of NZEBs have not been explored sufficiently. As significant penetration of NZEBs occurs, the aggregated electricity demand profile of the buildings on the electrical grid would experience dramatic changes. To estimate the impact of NZEBs on the electrical grid, a simulation-based study of an office building with a grid-tied PV power generation system is conducted. This study assumes that net-metering is available for NZEBs such that the excess on-site PV generation can be fed to the electrical grid. The impact of electrical energy storage (EES) within NZEBs on the electrical grid is also considered in this study. Finally, construction weighting factors of the office building type in U.S. climate zones are used to estimate the number of national office buildings. In order to consider the adoption of NZEBs in the future, this study examines scenarios with 20%, 50%, and 100% of the U.S. office building stock are composed of NZEBs. Results show that annual electricity consumption of simulated office buildings in U.S. climate locations includes the range of around 85 kWh/m2-year to 118 kWh/m2-year. Each simulated office building employs around 242 kWp to 387 kWp of maximum power outputs in the installation of on-site PV power systems to enable NZEB balances. On a national scale, the daily on-site PV power generation within NZEBs can cover around 50% to 110% of total daily electricity used in office buildings depending on weather conditions. The peak difference of U.S. electricity demand typically occurs when solar radiation is at its highest. The peak differences from the actual U.S. electricity demand on the representative summer day show 9.8%, 4.9%, and 2.0% at 12 p.m. for 100%, 50%, and 20% of the U.S. NZEB stocks, respectively. Using EES within NZEBs, the peak differences are reduced and shifted from noon to the beginning of the day, including 7.7%, 3.9%, and 1.5% for each percentage U.S. NZEB stock. NZEBs tend to create the significant curtailment of the U.S. electricity demand profile, typically during the middle of the winter day. The percentage differences at a peak point (12 p.m.) are 8.3%, 4.2%, and 1.7% for 100%, 50%, and 20% of the U.S. NZEB stocks, respectively. However, using EES on the representative winter day can flatten curtailed electricity demand curves by shifting the peak difference point to the beginning and the late afternoon of the day. The shifted peak differences show 7.4%, 3.7%, and 1.5% at 9 a.m. for three U.S. NZEB stock scenarios, respectively.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-31
Author(s):  
Wasiska Iyati ◽  
◽  
Eryani Nurma Yulita ◽  
Jusuf Thojib ◽  
Heru Sufianto ◽  
...  

The narrow land in big cities such as Jakarta, increases the amount of high rise building, especially multi-storey office building. Office building consumes much energy to provide air conditioning to meet the thermal comfort inside the building. On the other hand, the building shape, building envelope, and building orientation to the sun's position are the main factors in building design aspects that affect the amount of cooling load. This study aims to investigate the impact of the aspect ratio or the ratio of the longer dimension of an oblong plan to the shorter, on external heat gain of multi-storey office building. Variables examined include the transparent and solid area of building envelope, the total area of the surface of the building envelope in any orientation, and the volume of the building, as well as the influence of those proportion on the external heat gain. This study uses mathematical calculations to predict the cooling load of the building, particularly external heat gain through the walls, roof and glass, as well as comparative analysis of models studied. The study also aims to generate the design criteria of building form and proportion of multi-storey office buildings envelope with lower external heat gain. In Jakarta climatic conditions, the result on rectangular building plan with aspect ratio of 1 to 4 shows that the external heat gain did not differ significantly, and the smallest heat gain is found on the aspect ratio of 1.8. Results also showed that the greater aspect ratio, the greater reduction of external heat gain obtained by changing the orientation of the longest side facing east-west into the north-south, about 2.79% up to 42.14% on the aspect ratio of 1.1 to 4. In addition, it is known that in same building volume, changing the number of floors from 10 to 50 can improve the external heat gain almost twice.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Min Jae Suh ◽  
Annie R. Pearce ◽  
Yuhyun Song ◽  
Young Hoon Kwak ◽  
Jung In Kim ◽  
...  

Green building certification is a useful way to support objective evaluations of the sustainability of a building. Both the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) and Energy Star certifications are designed to reduce the negative environmental impacts of buildings and provide positive economic benefits to certified buildings. Given that a demonstrable positive economic impact is also required to satisfy one element of the triple bottom line of sustainability for these certifications, this study examined the economic impact of LEED and/or Energy Star certified office buildings on the market values of adjoining buildings in Manhattan, New York City (NYC), using a spatial analysis based on a Geographic Information System (GIS) and a statistical analysis utilizing R-Project. The study's findings reveal a positive impact for LEED and/or Energy Star certified office buildings on their adjoining buildings, pointing to the need for future research to investigate the spillover effect of LEED and/or Energy Star certified office buildings on other buildings in their neighborhood from a socio-economic standpoint.


Energies ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (22) ◽  
pp. 4326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simplice Igor Noubissie Tientcheu ◽  
Shyama P. Chowdhury ◽  
Thomas O. Olwal

The increasing demand to reduce the high consumption of end-use energy in office buildings framed the objective of this work, which was to design an intelligent system management that could be utilized to minimize office buildings’ energy consumption from the national electricity grid. Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) and lighting are the two main consumers of electricity in office buildings. Advanced automation and control systems for buildings and their components have been developed by researchers to achieve low energy consumption in office buildings without considering integrating the load consumed and the Photovoltaic system (PV) input to the controller. This study investigated the use of PV to power the HVAC and lighting equipped with a suitable control strategy to improve energy saving within a building, especially in office buildings where there are reports of high misuse of electricity. The intelligent system was modelled using occupant activities, weather condition changes, load consumed and PV energy changes, as input to the control system of lighting and HVAC. The model was verified and tested using specialized simulation tools (Simulink®) and was subsequently used to investigate the impact of an integrated system on energy consumption, based on three scenarios. In addition, the direct impact on reduced energy cost was also analysed. The first scenario was tested in simulation of four offices building in a civil building in South Africa of a single occupant’s activities, weather conditions, temperature and the simulation resulted in savings of HVAC energy and lighting energy of 13% and 29%, respectively. In the second scenario, the four offices were tested in simulation due to the loads’ management plus temperature and occupancy and it resulted in a saving of 20% of HVAC energy and 29% of lighting electrical energy. The third scenario, which tested integrating PV energy (thus, the approach utilized) with the above-mentioned scenarios, resulted in, respectively, 64% and 73% of HVAC energy and lighting electrical energy saved. This saving was greater than that of the first two scenarios. The results of the system developed demonstrated that the loads’ control and the PV integration combined with the occupancy, weather and temperature control, could lead to a significant saving of energy within office buildings.


2014 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuti Haryati Jasimin ◽  
Hishamuddin Mohd Ali

The development of sustainable buildings continues to gain momentum in Malaysia due to its many benefits. The Kuala Lumpur City Hall stipulated that the construction of every commercial building must meet the requirements of green features with at least ‘GBI Gold’ level or equivalent. With the growing interest in green development, questions were raised on whether there is enhancement to the market value of green-rated properties and vice-versa. As most of the commercial office buildings are used for functions and office spaces by most organisations, they are considered a service oriented entity and can significantly benefit from having sustainability attributes. Hence, green properties are considered to be more marketable and attractive for investment purpose. However, at present, the differences in rental rates in Malaysia between green and non-green commercial office buildings are rather small. The difference is more to supply and demand factors within the specific location rather than green features factor. Therefore, this paper hopes to highlight the possible impact of economics, the environment and social attributes on the value of commercial office building incorporating with the Russian-Doll model. The highlighted sustainable attributes will provide guidance and justification in valuing real estate incorporating sustainability.


Solar Energy ◽  
2004 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mostafa Abd El Mohimen ◽  
George Hanna ◽  
Moncef Krarti

This paper summarizes the results of a simulation analysis to determine the effectiveness of daylighting in reducing electrical energy consumption for office buildings in Egypt. Specifically, the impact on daylighting performance is investigated of window size, building size, daylighting control, and glazing type for three geographical locations in Egypt. It was determined that a window to wall area ratio of 0.20 minimizes the total annual electricity use for office buildings in three Egyptian locations, Cairo, Alexandria, and Aswan. A simplified analysis method is developed based on the analysis results to estimate the annual electrical energy savings attributed to daylighting.


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