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Buildings
Special Issues
Innovations in Integrated Renewable Energy and Adaptive Building Envelopes
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Innovations in Integrated Renewable Energy and Adaptive Building Envelopes

A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2025 | Viewed by 2141

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yelin Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Pipeline and Civil Engineering, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China
Interests: building energy saving; zero-energy building; building-integrated photovoltaic/thermal; energy system design and control
Prof. Dr. Haoshan Ren

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Architecture, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou 510641, China
Interests: carbon neutrality in energy systems; energy storage

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue of Buildings titled "Innovations in Integrated Renewable Energy and Adaptive Building Envelopes".

Integrating renewable energy systems into buildings and developing adaptive building envelopes are two promising approaches for creating more sustainable, energy-efficient buildings. Recent years have seen exciting advances in technologies such as building-integrated photovoltaics, solar thermal systems, phase change materials, electrochromic windows and passive cooling techniques.

This Special Issue seeks to publish cutting-edge research related to these technologies and their integration into high-performance buildings. We welcome original research articles, comprehensive reviews and real-world case studies focused on topics including, but not limited to:

  • Building-integrated photovoltaic systems;
  • Solar thermal and hybrid PV/thermal systems;
  • Phase change materials for dynamic insulation;
  • Smart glazing, electrochromic windows;
  • Radiative sky cooling;
  • Natural ventilation and passive cooling;
  • Techno-economic analyses;
  • Demonstration projects and field studies.

The objective is to highlight current innovations and future opportunities at the intersection of integrated renewables and adaptive building envelopes. We aim to foster knowledge sharing to accelerate the development and adoption of these key technologies for sustainable buildings.

Please consider submitting your latest research results and insights. We look forward to your contributions to this exciting and rapidly evolving field.

Dr. Yelin Zhang
Prof. Dr. Haoshan Ren
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • building integrated photovoltaics
  • solar thermal
  • smart glazing
  • radiative sky cooling
  • phase change materials
  • dynamic insulation
  • demand response
  • techno-economic analysis

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 4325 KiB  
Article
Experimental Study on the Photothermal Properties of Thermochromic Glass
by Mingyi Gao, Dewei Qian, Lihua Zhao and Rong Jin
Buildings 2025, 15(2), 233; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings15020233 - 15 Jan 2025
Viewed by 757
Abstract
Reducing energy consumption in buildings is critical to reducing CO2 emissions and mitigating global warming. Studies have shown that heating and cooling loads account for more than 40% of building energy consumption, and thermochromic glass (TCG) with dynamically adjustable solar transmittance is [...] Read more.
Reducing energy consumption in buildings is critical to reducing CO2 emissions and mitigating global warming. Studies have shown that heating and cooling loads account for more than 40% of building energy consumption, and thermochromic glass (TCG) with dynamically adjustable solar transmittance is an excellent way to reduce this load. Although a large number of studies have tested the spectral parameters of TCG in totally transparent and totally turbid states, the impact of dynamic changes in optical properties on the simulation accuracy of building energy consumption has been neglected. In this study, a method is proposed for a hydrogel-type TCG to dynamically test its spectral parameters based on spectrophotometry. The method uses a spectrophotometer and a PID heater to achieve the dynamic optical parameter testing of TCGs at different temperatures. In this paper, the transmission and reflection spectra of the two TCGs at 20~25 °C, 30~35 °C, 40 °C, 45 °C, 50 °C, and 55 °C were obtained, and the regression segmentation functions of visible transmittance and solar transmittance were established. The R2 of the function model is 0.99. In addition, the test results show that the thermochromic glass selected in this paper can selectively transmit different wavelengths of light, and its transmission mainly occurs in the visible and near-infrared wavelengths from 320 to 1420 nm, while the transmission rate of other wavelengths is very low. As the temperature increases, the visible, solar, and ultraviolet transmittances decrease at a similar rate. In addition, the higher the temperature acting on the thermochromic (TC) layer, the greater its haze. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Integrated Renewable Energy and Adaptive Building Envelopes)
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16 pages, 4072 KiB  
Article
Pyrolysis Modeling and Kinetic Study of Typical Insulation Materials for Building Exterior Envelopes
by Youchao Zhang, Bo Wang, Li Xu and Zhiming Ma
Buildings 2024, 14(12), 3956; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings14123956 - 12 Dec 2024
Viewed by 902
Abstract
Thermal insulation materials are important for building energy conservation, but the inherent combustibility of these materials increases the fire risk of building facades. To better understand the fire behaviors of these materials, the study of the kinetics of thermal insulation pyrolysis is particularly [...] Read more.
Thermal insulation materials are important for building energy conservation, but the inherent combustibility of these materials increases the fire risk of building facades. To better understand the fire behaviors of these materials, the study of the kinetics of thermal insulation pyrolysis is particularly important because it is the initial step in ignition and combustion during fire. In this paper, the pyrolysis behavior of expanded polystyrene (EPS), a typical non-charring insulation polymer, has been investigated by thermogravimetric analysis at five different heating rates. The model-free kinetic analysis showed that the obtained average values for E and lnA were 151.23 kJ/mol and 21.29 ln/s, respectively. Model-fitting CR and masterplot methods indicated that f(α) = [2(1-α)[-ln(1-α)]]1/2 is considered the pyrolysis reaction mechanism of EPS degradation. Based on these results, the equation of the kinetic compensation effect was further developed as lnA = −3.1955 + 0.1736 Eα. Finally, the reaction model was reconstructed with the result of the expression f(α) = 3.95335α0.24174 (1-α) [-ln(1-α)]1.64712. In addition, PY-GC-MS experiments were conducted to analyze the composition of EPS pyrolysis volatiles. The results showed that the products were mainly compounds of benzene, naphthalene, and biphenyl. The analysis of EPS pyrolysis behavior and evolved gas provides numerical guidance for the future treatment and fire protection of insulation materials. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Innovations in Integrated Renewable Energy and Adaptive Building Envelopes)
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