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The Influence of Over-Ventilation and Occupant Behavior on Energy Consumption...
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The Influence of Over-Ventilation and Occupant Behavior on Energy Consumption in Smart Buildings

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: closed (10 November 2023) | Viewed by 3405

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Hadia Awad

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Construction Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, 1200 Montreal Rd., Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6, Canada
Interests: building energy performance; net-zero energy/carbon buildings; operational carbon quantification; renewable energy; thermal storage; community solar photovoltaics
Dr. Araz Ashouri

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Construction Research Centre, National Research Council Canada, 1200 Montreal Rd., Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6, Canada
Interests: energy systems; optimization; system control; machine learning

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Buildings account for a considerable portion of global energy consumption and GHG emissions. Smart buildings aim to reduce building energy demand, especially wasted energy due to ad hoc occupant behavior or avoidable baseloads. In the past few years, during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new layer of complexity has been added to building energy performance: health and safety measures, such as social distancing between employees, increased outdoor air intake, and increased fan operating schedules, which led to increased energy demand in many cases. This Special Issue aims to shed light on smart building energy performance and find innovative methods to reduce the energy as well as carbon footprints of buildings, while ensuring that the new health and safety measures are met. New strategies for controlling building energy demand while meeting the minimum indoor air quality by applying smart controls and/or alternative energy sources constitute a very promising approach. This Special Issue plans to provide an overview of the most recent advances in the field of smart building energy performance. This Special Issue aims to provide selected contributions on advances in building energy data analytics, building envelope characterization, and applications of machine learning in load forecasting and classification.

Potential topics include but are not limited to:

  • Implications of COVID-19 and other potential ad hoc shutdowns on building energy performance;
  • Building peak load shifting;
  • Occupant behavior;
  • Climate-resilient buildings;
  • Building thermal storage;
  • Building electrochemical storage;
  • Demand response;
  • Building-integrated renewable energy.

Dr. Hadia Awad
Dr. Araz Ashouri
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 monthly 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

  • digital twins
  • peak load management
  • demand response
  • alternative energy sources
  • operational carbon quantification
  • load forecasting
  • building envelope performance

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

22 pages, 4747 KiB  
Article
How Building Energy Use Reacted to Variable Occupancy Pre- and Post- COVID-19 Pandemic—Sensitivity Analysis of 35 Commercial Buildings in Canada
by Hadia Awad, Araz Ashouri and Farzeen Rizvi
Buildings 2023, 13(9), 2160; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13092160 - 25 Aug 2023
Viewed by 1037
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic and global shutdown and work-from-home order for non-essential businesses and employees led to a substantial decline in energy usage in the commercial building sector. However, the magnitude of decline was not equivalent to what would be expected for unoccupied spaces. [...] Read more.
The COVID-19 pandemic and global shutdown and work-from-home order for non-essential businesses and employees led to a substantial decline in energy usage in the commercial building sector. However, the magnitude of decline was not equivalent to what would be expected for unoccupied spaces. The energy performance of low/unoccupied commercial buildings, particularly in the context of new minimum requirements to maintain indoor air quality, is an intriguing research question. In this study, we developed a numerical model that measures electricity usage sensitivity to occupancy (ESTO) where we compare the business-as-usual energy performance with unoccupied energy performance. Two years of COVID-time (in addition to a pre-COVID control year) hourly energy use (electricity (plug loads, lighting, and fans), heating, and cooling) using data from 35 commercial buildings (i.e., buildings with HVAC and other building systems typical of commercial rather than residential buildings) are analyzed to quantify those changes. A change point model is used to assess thermal load intensities, change point temperature, and off-season unoccupied baseloads. Finally, we suggest a generic framework for building scoring based on selected performance parameters. Results indicate that the suggested scoring system is robust and replicable and is reliable for ranking buildings within a given portfolio from best- to worst- performing, thus prioritizing buildings that are best candidates for retrofits. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Influence of Over-Ventilation and Occupant Behavior on Energy Consumption in Smart Buildings)
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41 pages, 10899 KiB  
Article
Generalizable Thermal Performance of Ventilated Block Walls and Energy Implication of Substitution for Wood-Frame Walls in Cold-Climate Buildings
by Mohammad Rezvanpour, Carlos Cruz-Noguez and Yuxiang Chen
Buildings 2023, 13(7), 1577; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13071577 - 21 Jun 2023
Viewed by 942
Abstract
Space heating and cooling of buildings is a major contributor to the ascending trend of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A potential solution to reduce the space heating and cooling is to use buildings’ mass for active thermal energy storage [...] Read more.
Space heating and cooling of buildings is a major contributor to the ascending trend of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. A potential solution to reduce the space heating and cooling is to use buildings’ mass for active thermal energy storage (TES). Having air circulation between an active TES and its associated zones can significantly enhance their thermal coupling; however, reported research studies have not focused on this kind of active TES. To that end, this study aimed to evaluate the thermal performance of a ventilated block wall (VBW) in reducing space heating and cooling loads in cold-climate buildings. In this system, air is circulated between a zone and the voided cores of a VBW, where the air exchanges heat with the wall before returning to the zone. To have a generalizable assessment of the system’s performance, typical-day and annual energy analyses were conducted under various boundary conditions and air circulation speeds. The study found that for a typical day with significant temperature fluctuation, a VBW with a 2 m/s air circulation speed throughout the day can lead to 67% more net energy exchange (the sum of thermal energy storage and release) when compared to having no air circulation. The annual analysis compared the energy performance between a VBW and a traditional wood-frame wall in three different cold climates. The results showed that substituting a wood-frame wall with a VBW can reduce space heating and cooling loads by 35.1 kWh/m2 (wall surface area) for a mixed dry–cold climate throughout the year. Having cement plaster as interior finishing can lead to 9% more net energy exchange than having drywall, on average, for all zone air temperature profiles. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Influence of Over-Ventilation and Occupant Behavior on Energy Consumption in Smart Buildings)
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23 pages, 5935 KiB  
Article
Space Cooling Energy Potential of Domestic Cold Water before Household Consumption in Cold-Climate Regions
by Mohammad Rezvanpour and Yuxiang Chen
Buildings 2023, 13(6), 1491; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13061491 - 09 Jun 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 892
Abstract
Space cooling energy consumption in residential buildings has tripled globally over the past three decades, leading to a significant increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and building operating costs. To reduce building cooling energy consumption, cooling energy can be recovered from domestic cold [...] Read more.
Space cooling energy consumption in residential buildings has tripled globally over the past three decades, leading to a significant increase in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and building operating costs. To reduce building cooling energy consumption, cooling energy can be recovered from domestic cold water (DCW) for space cooling by circulating DCW through thermally massive walls (herein “DCW-wall”) before regular household consumption (e.g., showers). This approach is more effective in cold climate regions since the DCW is cooler in these regions, yet its engineering design and effectiveness have not been evaluated previously. This study evaluated the cooling potential of DCW-walls in different operation scenarios (e.g., inlet temperatures, zone temperatures, and piping configurations). A typical DCW usage pattern and a daily amount of 1200 L were selected for evaluation. Three-dimensional transient thermal simulations were used to obtain the water outlet temperatures, average wall surface temperatures, and cooling potentials. The results showed that a DCW wall with a spiral piping configuration and DCW inlet at 12 °C can deliver 21.92 MJ of cooling energy daily to a zone at 25 °C. This amount of free energy can cover up to approximately 11% of the annual cooling energy demand of a four-person dwelling in Toronto, Canada, which has a warm and humid summer. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Influence of Over-Ventilation and Occupant Behavior on Energy Consumption in Smart Buildings)
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