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Dr. Kuljeet Grewal

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Sustainable Design Engineering (FSDE), University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PE C1A 4P3, Canada
Interests: energy efficient buildings; clean energy systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In the contemporary scenario related to advances in the field of energy, the role of building infrastructure is prominent. Energy efficiency in buildings is closely related to the environment, economics, and policy-making. Energy-efficient buildings can be attained using several approaches, such as building envelopes, materials, passive design, energy systems, and energy generation. Further, the integration of advanced technologies to attain high-performance buildings enhances the scope of research. To enable energy-efficient buildings, the integrated application of several tools is sometimes essential. These tools may support various perspectives, such as energy modeling, analysis, optimization, experiments, the environment, and policy decision-making.

This Special Issue aims to present a collection of original research papers and review articles describing recent advances in energy-efficient buildings. Topics of particular interest to this Special Issue include (but are not limited to):

the design of future buildings;
strategies for retrofitting;
advanced materials in building environments;
high-performance building envelopes;
novel energy modeling and quantification methods;
energy optimization;
building-level energy generation;
hybrid energy systems;
life cycle assessment;
economic analysis and strategies;
neighborhood energy efficiency;
smart buildings;
resilient buildings;
greenhouse gas (GHG) emission mitigation; and
sustainable building design

Authors are also encouraged to submit contributions on other topics related to energy-efficient buildings.

Dr. Kuljeet Singh Grewal
Guest Editor

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. Energies 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

high-performance buildings
advanced building technologies and materials
energy and the environment
building energy modeling tools
optimization and decision-making in buildings

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

27 pages, 2832 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Field Trial Evaluation of a Hybrid Heat Pump in an Existing Multi-Family House before and after Renovation

by Daniel Neubert, Christian Glück, Jeannette Wapler, Armin Marko, Constanze Bongs and Clemens Felsmann

Energies 2024, 17(6), 1502; https://doi.org/10.3390/en17061502 - 21 Mar 2024

Viewed by 663

Abstract

Renovation of existing buildings is fundamental to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of the building sector and to ensure the efficient operation of renewable heating systems. In multi-family houses, the suitability of heat pumps is limited by high required temperatures for the hot water preparation, which can be mitigated by hybrid heat pump systems. In this study, the energetic performance of a hybrid heat pump in a multi-family house, built in 1964, is investigated based on field data before and after a renovation. Multiple months are measured and mapped to a full year period. The combination of different renovation measures in the heating system and building envelope is rated w.r.t. their ecological and economical impact by taking into account the actual investment costs. The evaluation shows that the installation of a hybrid heat pump can achieve an accumulated greenhouse gas emissions reduction of 45%, which is similar to a building renovation to a new-build standard, which reduces the space heating demand by up to 62%. Nevertheless, only a combination of both measures can substantially reduce the emissions, which in this case are 81% lower compared to a gas boiler in 1990, which is still below the German climate target for 2040. Due to the low investment costs of a hybrid heat pump system, tenants are more likely to profit from a renting costs reduction, while a building renovation is especially economically beneficial at high energy prices. The results therefore emphasize that the insulation level should be selected carefully, as heat pumps already prepare space heating efficiently and that the heat pump must be able to support the hot water preparation to reach high emission reduction targets. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Energy-Efficient Buildings II)

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20 pages, 2433 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Evaluation Method of Comprehensive Performance of Retrofitted CHP District Heating Systems

by Daokun Chong, Haizhu Zhou, Xiaoping Li, Lining Zhou, Yitong Li and Mingda An

Energies 2023, 16(12), 4539; https://doi.org/10.3390/en16124539 - 06 Jun 2023

Viewed by 854

Abstract

There is a big wave in China of retrofitting single-purpose coal-fired systems for district heating into heat-oriented combined heat and power (CHP) systems to save energy. Back-pressure steam turbines (BPSTs) and extraction steam turbines (ESTs) are both common in retrofitted systems, but contrastive analyses of their effects on the systems’ operation performance are lacking. Moreover, comprehensive evaluation methods of the retrofitted systems remain unknown. In this paper, exergy, exergoeconomic, and exergoenvironmental analyses were conducted to evaluate the thermodynamic, economic, and environmental performances of two real CHP systems: system A using a BPST and system B using an EST. Additionally, a new multi-criteria evaluation method based on rank correlation analysis was proposed for the retrofitted system. The results show that system A is better than system B in thermodynamic and environmental aspects but poorer in the economic aspect. Overall, the multi-criteria evaluation result indicates that system A has a better comprehensive performance than system B. Therefore, the BPST has a better effect than the EST on the retrofitted CHP system for district heating in this study. The findings could provide a reference point for retrofitting work in the future. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Energy-Efficient Buildings II)

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