Special Issue "Advanced Energy Systems in Zero/Positive Energy Buildings, Communities and Districts"
A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 June 2023 | Viewed by 6107
Special Issue Editors

Interests: energy in buildings and communities; renwable energy integration; simulation and optimization of buildings’ performance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: zero energy building; positive energy buildings; positive energy district; energy transition; energy system modelling; renewable energy systems integration; energy storages; energy flexibility; energy resiliency in buildings and districts; sustainability
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The Building sector is important for cities around the world in its Climate Action efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In general, they are responsible for approximately 40% of the EU’s energy consumption and 36% of the emissions. Therefore, energy in the buildings, communities and districts is one of the main fields for the mitigation of emissions and ensuring a sustainable, self-sufficient and safe future. This can be done by enhancing the energy efficiency and using advanced energy systems components of onsite renewable energy generation, conversion, and storage technologies in buildings, communities and districts, which can offset the imported energy from the grids. Various raising concepts for net-zero/positive energy buildings and districts (NZPEBDs) have emerged in recent years to shape cities in to carbon-neutral communities in the near future. These buildings and districts can also support in reaching self-sufficiency, engage users and provide energy resiliency during outages.
For this Special Issue, authors are kindly invited to submit high-quality papers on one or more of the following topics related to advanced energy systems in net-zero/positive energy buildings and districts:
- Concepts, definitions and KPIs development of nearly/net/zero and positive energy buildings/communities/districts;
- Energy efficiency of buildings in communities and districts;
- Advanced HVAC systems in buildings;
- Heating/cooling energy and electricity demand;
- Advanced short/long-term energy storage for heating/cooling/electricity and controls;
- Renewable-based energy generations and smart controls;
- Energy resiliency of the buildings during grid outages under various weather conditions;
- Energy flexibility offered by buildings, communities and districts to the grid;
- Energy self-sufficiency of the buildings, communities and districts;
- Advanced simulation and optimization methods;
- Experience and results from demos and monitoring sites;
- Economic-, social- and policy-related aspects;
- User’s acceptance and engagement in communities and districts.
Prof. Dr. Ala Hasan
Dr. Hassam Ur Rehman
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. 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 2200 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
- nearly/net/zero and positive energy buildings/communities/districts
- advanced energy systems
- energy resiliency
- energy flexibility
- experience from demo sites
- economic, social and policy aspects
- user’s acceptance and engagement
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Study of Collective Self-Consumption and Energy Communities for the Reduction of Energy Poverty in Two Neighbourhoods in Spain
Authors: Adelaida Parreño 1, Alfonso P. Ramallo-González 1,* and Mónica Chinchilla Sánchez 2
Affiliation: 1. Universidad de Murcia
2. Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
Abstract: This paper summarizes the energy communities’ state of art and the study that has been done with the aim of reducing energy poverty in Getafe thanks to the implementation of an energy community with collective self-consumption by selecting one of four municipal buildings in two neighbourhoods of Getafe as a producer of solar photovoltaic energy. The energy community has a 95kWp installation located on the roof of the Margaritas Civic Center. 77% of the installed power is for 100 homes near the municipal building and 23% of that power is to cover 60% of the municipal building’s needs. 30 of the 100 homes are considered energy poverty so the rest are the one that will have a monthly fee of € 5.3 / month, then the 77% of the initial investment assigned to the 100 homes, will be paid back in 15 years and once that term is over the monthly fee will be suppressed. Having two different consumption profiles for 2 and 4 cohabitants, the electricity bill (on June/1/2021) is reduced compared to without self-consumption by € 15.69/month and € 16.4/month, respectively. To inform and involve the local residents in the energy community project, several mechanisms are used, such as workshops, information dissemination, and others.
Title: Economic Model-Predictive Control of Buildings’ Heating and Cooling Using the Backbone Energy System Modelling Framework
Authors: Topi Rasku *, Toni Lastusilta, Ala Hasan *, Rakesh Ramesh, and Juha Kiviluoma
Affiliation: VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, FI-02044 VTT Espoo, Finland
*Corresponding authors: [email protected], [email protected]
Abstract: Accessing the demand-side management potential of the residential heating sector requires sophisticated control capable of predicting the response of the building to changes in heating and cooling power, e.g. model predictive control. However, while studies exploring its impacts both for individual buildings as well as energy markets exist, the building-level control in large-scale energy system models hasn’t been properly verified. In this work, we demonstrate the feasibility of the open-source energy system modelling framework Backbone for simplified model-predictive control of buildings. Hourly moving horizon optimisations were performed to minimise the costs of flexible HVAC electricity consumption for a modern Finnish detached house and an apartment block with ground-to-water heat pump systems for the years 2015–2022. Compared to a baseline using a constant electricity price signal, the optimisation with hourly spot electricity market prices resulted in 3.1–17.5% yearly cost savings depending on the simulated year, agreeing with comparable literature. Overall, the simplified model predictive control was observed to behave logically, lending credence to the integration of simplified building models within large-scale energy system modelling frameworks.