Display omitted
•Techno-economic model of 72-apartment residential complex with rooftop solar.•Tariffs for cost and benefit distribution between stakeholders in embedded network.•Cost-recovery, ...incentivising efficient behaviour and ensuring consumer acceptance.•Cost-reflective demand charges unacceptable and cannot sustain embedded network.•Implications for tariff design, network regulation and policy.
Deployment of rooftop solar photovoltaics on multi-family buildings lags behind other residential buildings sectors, despite the benefit of significantly higher self-consumption achievable by applying on-site generation to aggregated building load. This is, in part, because of challenges in developing suitable business models to ensure the fair allocation of costs and benefits between different stakeholders. Embedded networks can provide a mechanism for consumers to co-ordinate their engagement in the energy market, as well as to distribute on-site generation between multiple households. However, to succeed, an embedded network must deliver benefits to all households as well as providing returns to investors. This paper uses a case-study of a 72-apartment complex in Sydney Australia to explore different ways to distribute the costs and benefits of a potential shared photovoltaic system between apartment owners and residents. A range of tariff structures, including demand or capacity charges as well as fixed and time-varying volumetric charges, are compared for their ability to recover investment costs, incentivise efficient energy behaviour and achieve customer acceptance through fairness and transparency. The analysis demonstrates the tension between these desired outcomes and the significant challenge of designing a mechanism to deliver them all. In particular, tariff structures incorporating peak demand charges, while cost-reflective and efficient, are unable to deliver benefits to all stakeholders and thereby ensure the sustainability of the embedded network. The findings have implications for market design and for policy approaches to support embedded networks and energy communities.
Display omitted
•Energy and economic performance of high-rise residential buildings explored.•Forty-five Wall-AC combinations studied and compared.•Energy performance assessed through whole building ...energy simulation.•Cost performance assessed considering the time value of money.•Monte Carlo Simulation used to deal with the risk.
Enhancing energy efficiency of any system with affordable measures is always a ‘win-win’ option, specifically for systems consuming large amount of energy. With increasing population and economic growth, rapid urbanization is inevitable, more so in developing countries. Due to higher population density and scarcity of available land, high-rise residential and commercial buildings are now increasing in big cities. Building energy efficiency has eventually emerged as a critical issue for such high-rise buildings. Space cooling consumes a huge amount of energy for high-rise buildings in tropical countries. Selection of masonry materials for exterior walls with matching air conditioners should be optimized for the best energy efficiency vis-à-vis least cost for high-rise buildings. Such a study to determine the optimized solution is reported using data of ten typical high-rise residential buildings in the warm-humid climate of Kolkata, India. The methodology followed is an integrated iterative process involving whole building energy simulation to determine the optimum performance out of different possible combinations of building walls (i.e., passive measure) and selection of corresponding air conditioners (i.e., active measure) for simultaneous best energy efficiency and minimum costing. Results show that the combination of autoclaved aerated concrete block wall and 5-star split air conditioner emerges as the optimum, being 37.53% more energy efficient and 24.27% more cost effective than the typically practiced baseline option. The required 29.47% higher capital investment is well compensated for lower annual expenditure for operational energy when fifteen years’ cash flow is considered. The study shows an integrated methodology for deciding the optimum combination of passive and active measures for the possible best energy performance at a minimum cost at the early design stage of high-rise buildings.
The rising indoor air pollution from particles is a cause for concern especially in houses where children and the elderly reside. In South Korea, assessment of exposure to particle number (PN) in ...residential apartments, which account for 76% of all houses, is limited. In our study, the indoor and outdoor PN (sizes 0.3–10.0 µm) concentrations were measured in ten typical apartments for 24 h each. In addition, the occupants’ schedules were examined by conducting a survey.
Results showed that the average outdoor PN concentrations were 0.30–4.37 × 109/m3 with very large deviations. Indoor peak events were mainly caused by cooking, and total emitted particles were 0.01–81.3 × 1013 particles. Indoor PN concentrations were sustained for a long time because of inefficient ventilation that led to lowered attenuation.
Indoor particles are generated during various indoor activities. The daily-integrated particle exposures were 21.4% and 78.6% for indoor and outdoor sources, respectively. Thus, outdoor sources were the predominant sources of particle exposure compared with indoor sources. In conclusion, penetration from outdoor sources needs to be reduced by adding air filtration to improve the airtightness of buildings when introducing outdoor air to lower the indoor PN concentration.
Display omitted
•On-site measurements of particle number concentrations.•Occupancy survey in 10 residential buildings.•Results presented on indoor peak event, loss rate coefficient, and particle exposure.•Exposure in South Korean residential apartments is predominantly attributed to outdoor sources.
While recent high-profile incidents have highlighted the impacts of building defects, there remains a dearth of comprehensive research that examines the full spectrum of health risks encountered by ...residents living in apartments affected by these defects. In this paper, an interdisciplinary perspective provides a comprehensive and structured synthesis of the literature on the varied impacts of lifecycle construction quality characteristics and defects on the health and wellbeing of apartment residents, including classification of methodological approaches. Twenty-seven peer reviewed articles published from 2010 onwards were selected and analysed through a systematic process from eight major online databases. Our findings synthesize the impacts of construction defects on three aspects of health: (1) physical health; (2) mental health; and (3) the general wellbeing of occupants. For each aspect, we also identify the associated defects. This paper highlights significant knowledge gaps in relation to methodologies, cohorts sampled, and the wider health impacts of certain defects. In relation to policy and practice, we discuss the need for a broader, interdisciplinary understanding of the extent of apartment building construction issues, and thus for a more holistic exploration of the impacts on health of these issues.
•Analysis of multi-storey residential building located in hot and humid climate.•Modelling of energy use for on-site construction processes.•Significance of construction energy for buildings with ...partial or no air-conditioning.•Analysis of building operational energy using field data.•Study of embodied energy of construction materials and building components.
The life cycle energy of a building consists of construction energy, operational energy and demolition energy. Construction refers to initial construction as well as recurring maintenance and repair work. Initial construction represents manufacturing of construction materials, transportation and site related on-site construction processes. Only a few studies focused on life cycle energy use of Indian residential buildings. However, the energy use due to on-site construction processes is either ignored or not modelled with adequate level of detail at present. This paper presents a case study on life cycle energy analysis of a residential development consisting of 96 identical apartment-type homes located in Southern India. Energy use due to transportation of materials and construction equipment use at site are quantified. Sensitivity analysis is carried out to study the influence of building service life and monthly electricity use per home on the relative significance of construction energy and operational energy. The construction energy is found to be a significant component of life cycle energy of residential buildings with partial or no air-conditioning. Further, reduced building service life period and increased energy efficiency achieved in the operational phase makes the construction energy as important as the operational energy with respect to life cycle.
•A comprehensive window opening model of residential buildings is developed.•The main factors affecting the window opening behavior change in different seasons.•The window operation model is ...validated by indoor CO2 concentration.
This study monitors the open/closed states of the windows in 16 residential apartments in representative cities of the hot summer and cold winter zone of China, along with outdoor air temperature, outdoor relative humidity and outdoor PM2.5 concentration in 2017, to investigate the window opening/closing behavior. Three window opening models are developed. All the models are validated by modeling a typical residential apartment to compare the predicted indoor CO2 concentration with monitored data. It is found that the window opening probability is negatively correlated to both outdoor PM2.5 concentration and outdoor relative humidity, and the probability of window opening reaches the peak value when the outdoor air temperature is 23.7 °C. In terms of season, the shortest window opening duration occurs in winter due to the cold outdoor air temperature and high outdoor PM2.5 concentration. Finally, by comparing the correlation between the measured date and simulation results of indoor CO2 concentration, this study provides an appropriate window opening model for reference.
Rapid urbanisation and population growth increase the demand for housing. Given its importance to human wellbeing, the right to housing is recognised in international, regional and domestic ...legislation. The rental housing sector is the major form of housing tenure in Ethiopia. Given financial constraints, Ethiopian tenants tend to rent instead of buying property. However, there are no well-developed procedures that guide how rental value is determined in Ethiopia. As such, the purpose of this study is to identify monthly rent determinant variables of residential apartments in Ethiopia. Substantial empirical results from different countries indicate that rental value is a result of the combined contribution of the integrated components: property, amenities, and externalities. For this study, a multiple regression model was used for 164 samples taken from three purposefully selected case study areas in Addis Ababa (CMC, Jemo and Kazanchis). The regression results indicate that nine significant variables were determinant variables of monthly rent at a 95% confidence interval. This study may contribute decisive information for Ethiopian property managers, real estate developers, income tax assessors, real property owners, lending institutions and other interested real estate professionals. It allows these stakeholders to more accurately estimate the monthly rental value and market value of properties for their business evaluation.
Throughout the past few decades, research has demonstrated that climatic factors are some of the most important issues to be considered in respect of energy consumption in buildings. Climatic ...factors, therefore, directly influence the economic sector. In order to study the impact of climatic factors in Karakol residential buildings in terms of energy consumption, an evaluation of the studies (literature survey) effected in relevant climates, and the analysis of the existing buildings according to these studies is essential. This represents the aim of this research and the other is to present design strategies for minimizing the negative impact of climatic factors on energy demand in these buildings. To approach the research objectives, the climate of the region was initially investigated. In an attempt to evaluate some of the current housing in the Karakol district of Famagusta in terms of the climatic factors, three types of residential apartments were identified and evaluated through observation, interview, and also by the distribution and complication of qualitative and statistical questionnaires to and by the occupants of the apartments. In this paper, basic climatic problems, as a result of which lead to increased energy consumption in residential apartments in respect of heating and cooling were identified and reported.
Student residents' perception of the student residential apartment environment has gained greater prominence. Developing a performance evaluation framework from students' perspective is essential to ...post-occupancy management. In this study, an occupant-oriented performance evaluation framework was established based on a student residential apartment complex in the Netherlands through literature analysis, expert interviews and a focus group discussion with student resident representatives. The innovative framework, which comprises three levels of building performance attributes, divides the architectural design and building services performance attributes into two major categories. A questionnaire survey designed based on analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) methods was used to evaluate the framework. Data on student residents' perceived importance of and satisfaction with the building performance attributes was collected by the survey. The analysis results show that building service performance attributes were considered less important to the student residents than architectural design attributes. Student residents' perceived priority weightings for various building performance attributes were compared by gender, educational level and length of stay. This study incorporates, in an innovative manner, student residents' perception into developing a performance evaluation framework for student residential apartments, and adopted the integrated AHP-FCE method to measure student residents’ perception on the overall building performance. The findings have important ramifications for the post-occupancy management stage.
•An occupant-oriented approach was adopted in building performance evaluation.•A systematic building performance evaluation framework was created.•Residents' perception variation was incorporated in the evaluation system.•An FCE-AHP method was used in the questionnaire design and data analysis process.
A transactive energy coordination mechanism is proposed in this study where community microgrids are supplying power to multi-dwelling residential apartments. The proposed transactive energy ...coordination mechanism coordinates the energy sharing among apartments based on the energy profile of the community microgrid where the excess energy is traded with non-contributing apartments. The proposed coordination mechanism is embedded within an energy management controller which uses the energy profile and determines the valuation of energy. A choice factor along with the bound on electricity prices is also incorporated to calculate the bidding price and a double-sided auction mechanism is considered for the bidding purpose. The utility maximisation approach is used to clear the market. Different scenarios based on the flexibility in the pricing strategy are considered to evaluate the performance of the proposed transactive energy coordination mechanism. The potential economic benefits of the proposed scheme are also analysed which clearly demonstrate that it is beneficial for all participants.
PDF
