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Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency
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Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Green Building".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 6782

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Jiaqiang Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Energy Science and Engineering, Central South University, Changsha 410083, China
Interests: building energy saving; data center efficient cooling technology; model predictive control in building system; virtual sensor calibration
Dr. Linfeng Zhang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Transportation, Southeast University, Nanjing 411189, China
Interests: optimal design method for low carbon buildings; renewable energy application for buildings; grid-interactive efficient buildings
Dr. Sungmin Yoon

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Global Smart City, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon 16419, Republic of Korea
Interests: building science; digitalization and energy; in situ virtual sensing; information fusion in buildings; self-evolving building systems

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The building sector consumes 40% of energy from primary sources and contributes to 36% of greenhouse gases emissions; thus, it plays an important role in energy usage, raising environmental concerns. However, with people's continuous demand for a healthy and comfortable living environment, carbon emissions in the building field will continue to increase. Therefore, promoting green and low-carbon development in this area is the key strategy to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality.

This Special Issue aims to cover the most recent advances in low-carbon research with a focus on buildings design and energy efficiency. This issue welcomes original research article and reviews. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

  • Modeling and design method for net-zero carbon buildings;
  • Renewable energy utilization for low-carbon buildings;
  • Carbon emission calculation method for low-carbon buildings;
  • Energy efficiency renovation methods for existing buildings;
  • Roadmap for net-zero carbon buildings;
  • Sustainable and green architecture design;
  • Demand-based control and optimization;
  • Modelling, control and optimization for building energy systems;
  • Simulation model and sensor calibration methods;
  • Artificial intelligence for building integrated renewable energy systems.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jiaqiang Wang
Dr. Linfeng Zhang
Dr. Sungmin Yoon
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. Sustainability 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 2400 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

  • building energy saving
  • low-carbon buildings
  • building integrated renewable energy systems
  • building system control and optimization

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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21 pages, 2800 KiB  
Article
Performance Analysis of Lake Water Cooling Coupled with a Waste Heat Recovery System in the Data Center
by Peng Yin, Yang Guo, Man Zhang, Jiaqiang Wang, Linfeng Zhang, Da Feng and Weike Ding
Sustainability 2024, 16(15), 6542; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16156542 - 31 Jul 2024
Viewed by 1029
Abstract
Data centers (DCs) require continuous cooling throughout the year and produce a large amount of low-grade waste heat. Free cooling and waste heat recovery techniques are promising approaches to reduce DC energy consumption. Although previous studies have explored diverse waste heat utilization strategies, [...] Read more.
Data centers (DCs) require continuous cooling throughout the year and produce a large amount of low-grade waste heat. Free cooling and waste heat recovery techniques are promising approaches to reduce DC energy consumption. Although previous studies have explored diverse waste heat utilization strategies, there is a significant gap in combining waste heat recovery with lake water cooling in DCs. Therefore, this study proposed a system integrating lake water cooling with waste heat recovery for DCs. To evaluate the energy-saving performance of the suggested system, the influence of waste heat recovery locations and volumes has been investigated. An analysis of the improvement in system parameters is also conducted. The study’s findings highlight that targeted recovery of waste heat from sources like chilled water or air in server rooms can significantly reduce the cooling energy demand of the system. The results show that recovering heat from the return air of IT equipment can yield a remarkable power usage effectiveness (PUE) and coefficient of performance (COP) of 1.19 and 10.17, and the energy consumption of the cooling system is reduced to 10.06%. Moreover, the outcomes reveal the potential for substantial energy savings of up to 26.05% within the proposed system by setting the chilled water and air supply temperatures to 16 and 20 °C, respectively. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency)
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19 pages, 2026 KiB  
Article
Optimising Building Energy and Comfort Predictions with Intelligent Computational Model
by Salah Alghamdi, Waiching Tang, Sittimont Kanjanabootra and Dariusz Alterman
Sustainability 2024, 16(8), 3432; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16083432 - 19 Apr 2024
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1299
Abstract
Building performance prediction is a significant area of research, due to its potential to enhance the efficiency of building energy management systems. Its importance is particularly evident when such predictions are validated against field data. This paper presents an intelligent computational model combining [...] Read more.
Building performance prediction is a significant area of research, due to its potential to enhance the efficiency of building energy management systems. Its importance is particularly evident when such predictions are validated against field data. This paper presents an intelligent computational model combining Monte Carlo analysis, Energy Plus, and an artificial neural network (ANN) to refine energy consumption and thermal comfort predictions. This model addresses various combinations of architectural building design parameters and their distributions, effectively managing the complex non-linear relationships between the response variables and predictors. The model’s strength is demonstrated through its alignment with R2 values exceeding 0.97 for both thermal discomfort hours and energy consumption during the training and testing phases. Validation with field investigation data further confirms its accuracy, demonstrating average relative errors below 2.0% for total energy consumption and below 1.0% for average thermal discomfort hours. In particular, an average underestimation of −12.5% in performance discrepancies is observed when comparing the building energy simulation model with field data, while the intelligent computational model presented a smaller overestimation error (of +8.65%) when validated against the field data. This discrepancy highlights the model’s potential and reliability for the simulation of real-world building performance metrics, marking it as a valuable tool for practitioners and researchers in the field of building sustainability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency)
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20 pages, 3489 KiB  
Article
Optimal Planning of Urban Building-Type Integrated Energy Systems Considering Indoor Somatosensory Comfort and PV Consumption
by Guangzeng You, Peng Sun, Yi Lei, Donghui Zhang and Haibo Li
Sustainability 2024, 16(1), 411; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16010411 - 3 Jan 2024
Viewed by 942
Abstract
Building energy consumption is the main urban energy consumption component, which mainly serves people-centered work and living energy demands. Based on the physical requirements of humans in urban buildings and to determine the comfortable body temperature in each season, this paper establishes a [...] Read more.
Building energy consumption is the main urban energy consumption component, which mainly serves people-centered work and living energy demands. Based on the physical requirements of humans in urban buildings and to determine the comfortable body temperature in each season, this paper establishes a sizing optimization model of building-type integrated energy systems (IES) for sustainable development, where the cooling and heating loads required to maintain indoor somatosensory body comfort temperature are calculated. Depending on the external energy price, internal power balance, and other constraints, the model develops an optimal sizing and capacity-planning method of energy conversion and storage unit in a building-type IES with PV generation. The operating principle is described as follows: the PV generation is fully consumed, a gas engine satisfies the electric and thermal base load requirements, and the power system and a heat pump supply the remaining loads. The gas price, peak-valley electricity price gap, and heat-to-power ratio of gas engines are considered important factors for the overall techno-economic analysis. The developed method is applied to optimize the economic performance of building-type IES and verified by practical examples. The results show that using the complementary characteristics of different energy conversion units is important to the overall IES cost. A 300 kW building photovoltaic system can reduce the gas engine capacity from 936.7 kW to 854.7 kW, and the annual cost can be approximately reduced from 7.82 million to 7.50 million RMB yuan. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency)
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22 pages, 19055 KiB  
Article
The Relationship between Residential Block Forms and Building Carbon Emissions to Achieve Carbon Neutrality Goals: A Case Study of Wuhan, China
by Haitao Lian, Junhan Zhang, Gaomei Li and Rui Ren
Sustainability 2023, 15(22), 15751; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152215751 - 8 Nov 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1552
Abstract
Controlling building carbon emissions (CEs) is key to achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. Residential blocks are the main contributors of buildings’ carbon emissions and intensity, and thus can be manipulated to achieve carbon neutrality. This work aimed to evaluate the building carbon [...] Read more.
Controlling building carbon emissions (CEs) is key to achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. Residential blocks are the main contributors of buildings’ carbon emissions and intensity, and thus can be manipulated to achieve carbon neutrality. This work aimed to evaluate the building carbon emissions intensity (CEI) levels of residential blocks using Rhino and Grasshopper and to quantify the relationship between the block form parameters and a building’s carbon emissions (CEs). Firstly, 48 cases were selected by stratified sampling, and they were classified by architectural typology. Secondly, the residential block morphological parameters and building carbon emissions were calculated. Thirdly, the relationship between the block form parameters and the building’s CE was quantified using statistical methods. Lastly, low-carbon planning strategies for residential blocks under the target of carbon neutrality were proposed. The findings showed that the influence of the block form parameters on a building’s CE was 31.66%. A building’s shape factor has a positive influence on its CE, and the floor area ratio, building volume–site area ratio, and building height have negative influences on its CE. A building’s shape factor, cover ratio, and surface–site area ratio synergistically impact its CE. The weight of a building’s shape factor on its carbon emissions was 3.84 times that of its cover ratio and 4.46 times that of its surface–site area ratio. The technology workflow proposed in this study can provide data in support of carbon emissions assessments and low-carbon planning strategies for urban blocks in other cities in China and worldwide. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency)
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20 pages, 5668 KiB  
Article
Study on Effects of Operating Parameters on a Water-Cooled Loop Thermosyphon System under Partial Server Utilization
by Sikai Zou, Chang Yue, Ting Xiao, Xingyi Ma and Yiwei Wang
Sustainability 2023, 15(17), 13100; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151713100 - 31 Aug 2023
Viewed by 927
Abstract
During the operation of a data center, servers are gradually installed in racks, causing most racks to work under a low heating load for a long time and affecting the cooling efficiency of the loop thermosyphon system (LTS). Thus, the effects of operating [...] Read more.
During the operation of a data center, servers are gradually installed in racks, causing most racks to work under a low heating load for a long time and affecting the cooling efficiency of the loop thermosyphon system (LTS). Thus, the effects of operating parameters on the thermal performance should be investigated. In this study, a water-cooled LTS was experimentally investigated under different airflow rates and heating loads. The results show that the additional liquid refrigerant reduced the heat transfer performance and aggravated a drop in cooling capacity when the airflow rate and heating load were decreased. To further reveal the effects of the operating parameters on the thermal performance and cooling efficiency, a steady-state distributed-parameter model was developed and validated based on the experimental data. The results show that the excessive cooling capacity was reduced by decreasing the airflow rate according to the upper limit of the server exhaust air temperature under partial server utilization. The excessive cooling capacity was reduced by 14.5–52.1% under 5–56.5% server utilization. To further reduce the excessive cooling capacity while ensuring thermal security, the water side operating parameters (including the supply chilled water temperature and water flow rate) were adjusted according to the upper limit of the rack’s average outlet air temperature, which reduced the excessive cooling capacity by more than 23.8% under partial server utilization. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advanced Research on Low Carbon Buildings Design and Energy Efficiency)
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