scholarly journals Seismic Policy, Operations, and Research Uses for a Building Inventory in an Earthquake-Prone City

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 709-718
Author(s):  
Ken Elwood ◽  
Olga Filippova ◽  
Ilan Noy ◽  
Jacob Pastor Paz
Keyword(s):  
Central Business District ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Seismic Retrofitting ◽  
Detailed Knowledge ◽  
Policy Uncertainty ◽  
Regulatory Structure ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Building Inventory ◽  
The Impact

AbstractAfter the 2016 New Zealand Kaikoura Earthquake, the absence of information about the state of buildings in Wellington proved to be a source of significant policy uncertainty. Authorities did not know what damages to expect and therefore how to react, and policies needed to be formulated without a clear quantification of the risks. Moreover, without detailed knowledge of the existing buildings, it was difficult to assess what the available legal and regulatory tools can achieve and choose among them. We describe the creation of a building inventory database for Wellington initiated by the authors. This database aims to assist the generation of research on the risks, impacts, and viable solutions for reducing future seismic risk in Wellington’s central business district (CBD). The database includes structural, economic, and market information on virtually every significant building in the CBD. Its primary purposes are: to collate and provide the best available information about the expected seismic performance of the existing building stock; to assess the impact of possible multiple building failures due to a seismic event; to describe a viable cost-effective path for seismic retrofitting; and to inform the design of a regulatory structure that can facilitate this resilience-building agenda.

scholarly journals A detailed inventory of medium to high-rise buildings in Wellington's central business district

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 172-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aishwarya Puranam ◽  
Olga Filippova ◽  
Jacob Pastor-Paz ◽  
Max Stephens ◽  
Kenneth J. Elwood ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Central Business District ◽  
City Council ◽  
Easy Access ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Building Inventory ◽  
High Rise ◽  
Recent Earthquakes ◽  
Business District ◽  
Available Information

Recent earthquakes in New Zealand not only highlighted the vulnerabilities of the existing building stock but also the need for: (i) a better understanding of the building inventory, and (ii) easy access to information for quicker response after an event. In the case of Wellington, efforts over the years by the City Council and other stakeholders have produced a number of useful datasets about the building inventory. These available datasets when put together are critical in understanding the composition and characteristics of the building inventory in Wellington. This paper describes the available information, and the process to combine the different strands of data possessed by multiple stakeholders into an effective and usable multi-disciplinary building inventory database for Wellington’s CBD. The uses and future directions for this collated database are also discussed.

Deep renovation up to zero energy through Add-ons: the ABRACADABRA Project

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annarita Ferrante ◽  
Fabrizio Ungaro ◽  
Giovanni Semprini ◽  
Lorna Dragonetti ◽  
Elettra Agliardi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effective ◽  
Urban Environments ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Urban Context ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
The Real Estate ◽  
International Projects ◽  
Eu Project ◽  
The Eu

<p>and international projects</p><p>various EU H2020 projects</p><p>Though housing is one of the most energy consumer sectors, it is currently extremely underestimated, because of a clear investment gap due to economic, social and legislative barriers. The EU project ABRACADABRA (Assistant Building to Retrofit, Adopt, Cure And Develop the Actual Buildings up to zeRo energy, Activating a market for deep renovation) is based on the idea that the real estate value increase given by the appropriate densification strategy in urban environments could be an opportunity to activate a market for deep energy renovation. To prove the effectiveness of the strategy more than 70 case studies throughout the EU cities have been assessed by means of a cost-effective analysis. Basing on the parametric variation of the different values involved (cost of construction, energy, etc.) the benefit of this strategy has been proved in the majority of the different building types and contexts.</p><p>More interestingly, the ABRA strategy has been simulated and tested outside Europe in order to verify its scalability and the possibility of considering other non-energy related benefits in the renovation of the existing building stock. A specific study on the NYC urban context has been conducted to effectively adapt the strategy and combine the global drivers of energy consumption reduction and CO<span>2</span> emission reduction with the local need of combating flood emergency and related flood-proofing measures.</p><p>The results reached by this work demonstrate how the energy retrofit trough add-ons reduces significantly the payback times of the investments, preserve soil consumption, while providing a extraordinary opportunity to enhance urban resiliency by challenging the local emergencies.</p>

scholarly journals Dynamic Energy Modelling as an Alternative Approach for Reducing Performance Gaps in Retrofitted Schools in Denmark

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 7862
Author(s):  
Muhyiddine Jradi
Keyword(s):  
Public Schools ◽  
Process Evaluation ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Building Envelope ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Performance Gap ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Alternative Approach ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Retrofit Design

When considering that over 80% of buildings in Denmark were built before the 1980′s, a holistic energy retrofitting of the existing building stock is a major milestone to attain the energy and environmental targets of the country. In this work, a case study of three public schools is considered for post-retrofit process evaluation. The three schools were heavily retrofitted by September 2018 with energy conservation and improvement measures that were implemented targeting both the building envelope and various energy systems. A technical evaluation of the energy retrofit process in the schools was carried out, when considering one year of operation after the completion of the retrofitting work. Actual data from the heating and electricity meters in the schools were collected and compared with the pre-retrofit design numbers which rely majorly on static tabulated numbers for savings evaluation. It was shown that the retrofit design numbers largely overestimate the attained savings, where the average performance gap between the expected and real numbers for the three schools is around 61% and 136% for annual heating and electricity savings, respectively. On the other hand, an alternative approach was proposed where calibrated dynamic energy performance models, which were developed for the three schools in EnergyPlus, were used to simulate the impact of implementing the retrofit measures. It was shown that implementing this approach could predict much better the impacts of the retrofit process with an average gap of around 17% for heating savings and 21% for electricity savings. Based on the post-retrofit process evaluation in the three schools, it was concluded that using dynamic model simulations has the potential of lowering the performance gap between the promised and real savings when compared to static tabulated approaches, although the savings are still generally over-estimated in both approaches.

Measuring the Impact of Enhanced Building Performance on the Seismic Resilience of a Residential Community

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 1347-1367 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry V. Burton ◽  
Gregory Deierlein ◽  
David Lallemant ◽  
Yogendra Singh
Keyword(s):  
Seismic Performance ◽  
Recovery Period ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Building Performance ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Residential Community ◽  
Earthquake Performance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Seismic Resilience

The relationship between the earthquake performance of an inventory of buildings and the seismic resilience of a residential community is examined, by quantifying the immediate post-earthquake reduction and recovery of the shelter-in-place housing capacity. The effect of several mitigation strategies that involve replacing portions of the existing building stock with an enhanced seismic performance system is evaluated. The impact on community resilience is assessed based on the immediate and cumulative loss of permanent housing occupancy as well as the time to recover some fraction of the pre-earthquake housing capacity. The results show how the slope of the recovery curve for occupiable housing during different periods following the event can be linked to the distribution of building damage. In addition to limiting major damage, enhanced building seismic performance is shown to reduce aggregate losses over the recovery period, thereby having a significant effect on both the safety and resilience of residential communities.

scholarly journals Novel Methodology toward Nearly Zero Energy Building (NZEB) Renovation: Cost-Effective Balance Approach as a Pre-Step to Cost-Optimal Life Cycle Cost Assessment

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (9) ◽  
pp. 4141
Author(s):  
Yovko Ivanov Antonov ◽  
Per Kvols Heiselberg ◽  
Michal Zbigniew Pomianowski
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle Cost ◽  
Energy Savings ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Zero Energy ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Zero Energy Building ◽  
Selection Of

Reaching environmental targets set by the European Union (EU) requires a constant renovation of the existing building stock to nearly Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) in a cost-optimal manner. Studies show that the renovation rate of the existing building stock is more than two times less than what is necessary to reach the targets. Furthermore, the majority of performed renovations across the EU reach just a small amount of energy savings, whereas NZEB renovations are rarely achieved. This paper proposes a methodology for the evaluation of renovation measures, aiming to provide decision support related to the selection of what to renovate and to what extent. The proposed method is rooted in the well-established cost-optimal methodology, yet it suggests a pre-step to package evaluation. This is done by means of a simplified cost-effective parameter (CEP), linking cost, lifetime, and energy savings. The methodology is demonstrated using a case study building in Denmark. The results show that the CEP provides good grounds for the compilation of single actions to packages. Further developments could focus on the sensitivity of the model inputs and integration of additional evaluation parameters to cost, such as environmental, architectural, comfort, risk, etc.

Multiple-Benefit Analysis of Scaling-Up Building Energy Efficiency Programs: The Case Study of Tunisia

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Moncef Krarti
Keyword(s):  
Energy Efficiency ◽  
Scale Up ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Scaling Up ◽  
Building Energy Efficiency ◽  
Productivity Analysis ◽  
Energy Productivity ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Wide Range

Abstract This paper evaluates the benefits of scaling-up energy efficiency and renewable energy programs for the building sector in Tunisia. Both energy and non-energy benefits are quantified using a bottom-up analysis approach to assess economic, environmental, and social impacts of a wide range of energy policies targeting new and existing Tunisian building stocks. The investments required to scale-up programs set to improve the energy efficiency performance of existing building stocks are determined in order to assess both their cost-effectiveness and their impact on the overall energy productivity of Tunisia's economy. The energy productivity analysis is performed to account for both energy and non-energy benefits of building-integrated energy efficiency programs. The energy productivity analysis clearly shows that retrofitting existing building stock has several benefits for Tunisia including reduction of the national energy consumption as well as improvement of the country's overall economy energy efficiency. However, only basic retrofit programs are found to be cost-effective for the private sector to implement with discounted payback periods of less than 5 years. Combined with improving the energy efficiency of new and existing buildings, the installation of rooftop photovoltaic systems for households can significantly lower reliance of Tunisia on imported fuels and improve the energy productivity of its overall economy.

scholarly journals What Are the Implications of Climate Change for Retrofitted Historic Buildings? A Literature Review

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (18) ◽  
pp. 7557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lingjun Hao ◽  
Daniel Herrera-Avellanosa ◽  
Claudio Del Pero ◽  
Alexandra Troi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Energy Performance ◽  
Thermal Mass ◽  
Historic Buildings ◽  
Building Stock ◽  
Existing Building ◽  
Extreme Precipitation Events ◽  
Warming Climate ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Precipitation Events

Historic buildings account for more than one-quarter of Europe’s existing building stock and are going to be crucial in the achievement of future energy targets. Although a drastic reduction in carbon emissions would slow climate change, an alteration in the climate is already certain. Therefore, the impact of climate change on retrofitted historic buildings should be considered in terms of occupants’ comfort, heritage conservation, and energy performance. Inappropriate interventions might weaken the potential of traditional climate adaptive solutions, such as thermal mass and night cooling, leading to higher risks of overheating in a warming climate. Similarly, retrofit solutions will change the moisture dynamics of historic envelopes, which might lead to moisture damages when combined with more extreme precipitation events. This paper reviews recent literature that provides evidence of climate change’s impact on retrofitted buildings, reveals potential future risks, and thereby sheds light on new factors influencing the decision-making process in the retrofit of historic buildings.

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