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Dr. Theodosiou Theodoros

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Guest Editor

Department of Civil Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, P.O. BOX 429, 54124 Thessaloniki, Greece
Interests: building physics; energy efficiency; sustainability in the built environment; low and near zero energy buildings

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

While recent developments in building codes and energy consumption requirements have gradually led building design to very demanding levels, actual building constructions often find it hard to reach this efficiency in practice. The gap between predicted and actual energy consumption is still considerable.

Currently, a great deal of research effort has been given to reducing this gap by introducing new materials, systems, methods, tools, and regulations, developed specifically to provide accuracy and to support the sustainability of new building structures or the sustainable refurbishment of existing ones.

The aim of this Special Issue is to synthesize current knowledge, to disseminate recent advances in the field and to promote research on all advanced technologies and concepts related to the energy efficiency of buildings, on successful energy conscious design of new buildings and refurbishment of existing structures and on integrated approaches that support the requirement for improved energy efficient buildings with optimum indoor environmental conditions.

Topics covered include the entire range of subjects involved in energy conscious design of sustainable buildings, from the scale of building materials and elements, systems, operational and thermal comfort issues, up to the scale of buildings’ interaction with local environments.

Dr. Theodosiou Theodoros
Guest Editor

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Keywords

Near Zero Energy Buildings
energy efficiency
smart materials
smart facades
building integrated renewable energy systems
sustainable building refurbishment

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

12 pages, 3053 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Sustainable Reuse of Military Facilities with a Carbon Inventory: Kinmen, Taiwan

by Hua-Yueh Liu

Sustainability 2019, 11(6), 1810; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11061810 - 26 Mar 2019

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 3679

Abstract

Military government was lifted from Kinmen in 1992. The opening-up of cross-strait relations transformed the island into a tourist destination. This transformation led to electricity and water shortages in Kinmen. With the reduction in the number of troops, military facilities fell into disuse and are now being released for local government use. The aim of this project was to monitor the carbon footprint of a reused military facility during renovation of the facility. The LCBA-Neuma system, a local carbon survey software developed by the Low Carbon Building Alliance (LCBA) and National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, was used in this project. The system analyzes the carbon footprint of the various phases of the building life cycle (LC) during renovation and carbon compensation strategies were employed to achieve the low carbon target. This project has pioneered the transformation of a disused military facility using this approach. The carbon footprint of energy uses during post-construction operation (CFeu) accounted for the majority of carbon emissions among all stages, at 1,088,632.19 kgCO₂e/60y, while the carbon footprint of the new building materials (CFm) was the second highest, at 214,983.66 kgCO₂e/60y. Installation of a solar cell system of 25.2 kWp on the rooftop as a carbon offset measure compensated for an estimated 66.1% of the total life-cycle carbon emissions. The findings of this study show that the process of reusing old military facilities can achieve the ultimate goal of zero carbon construction and sustainable development. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Energy Conscious Design and Refurbishment of Sustainable Buildings)

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14 pages, 770 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Residential Consumers’ Willingness to Pay Price Premium for Renewable Heat in South Korea

by Hee-Hoon Kim, Seul-Ye Lim and Seung-Hoon Yoo

Sustainability 2019, 11(5), 1234; https://doi.org/10.3390/su11051234 - 26 Feb 2019

Cited by 11 | Viewed by 2655

Abstract

Heat accounts for about one-third of the final energy use and it is mostly produced using fossil fuels in South Korea. Thus, heat production is an important source of greenhouse gas emissions. However, using renewable heat that is directly produced from renewable energy, such as bioenergy, geothermal, or solar heat can save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, rather than transforming conventional fuel into heat. Therefore, an energy policy for renewable heat urgently needs to be established. It is such situations that this paper attempts to assess the consumers’ additional willingness to pay (WTP) or the price premium for renewable heat over heat that is produced from fossil fuels for residential heating. To that end, a nationwide contingent valuation survey of 1000 households was conducted during August 2018. Employing the model allowing for zero WTP values, the mean of the additional WTP or premium for one Gcal of heat produced using renewable energy rather than fossil fuels was estimated to be KRW 3636 (USD 3.2), which is statistically meaningful at the 1% level. This value represents the price premium for renewable heat over heat that is based on fossil fuels. Given that the heat price for residential heating was approximately KRW 73,000 (USD 65.1) per Gcal at the time of the survey, the additional WTP or the price premium corresponds to about 5% of that. When considering that the cost of producing renewable heat is still significantly higher than the cost of producing fossil fuels-based heat, more efforts to lower the production costs of renewable heat as well as financial support of the government for producing and supplying renewable heat are needed to ensure residential consumers’ acceptance of renewable heat. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Energy Conscious Design and Refurbishment of Sustainable Buildings)

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