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Energy Efficiency and Life Quality in Indoor Environment

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Engineering and Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 October 2024) | Viewed by 1947

Special Issue Editor

Indoor Climate Research & Training, Applied Research Institute, The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
Interests: building energy efficiency; indoor air quality; measurement, modeling and control of airborne pollutants; enclosed environment CFD modeling; airflow visualization

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

It is our pleasure to announce a new Special Issue, “Energy Efficiency and Life Quality in Indoor Environment”, of the journal Sustainability.

Most people spend a majority of their lives indoors, and their quality of life is significantly affected by indoor environments. However, it is estimated that building sectors are responsible for more than 30% of global energy consumption and roughly 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions in efforts to ensure that indoor environments remain safe, comfortable, healthy, and productive. This contrarily impacts the outdoor environment and may degrade human and wildlife environment, lifestyles, and quality of life in the long run. How to minimize energy consumption and, at the same time, to maintain, if not to improve, people’s quality of life and to establish a sustainable and resilient society, is a great challenge, especially in some special scenarios, such as extreme weather conditions, prolonged and more frequent heat waves, wildfire smoke, isolating a COVID-infected patient in a home, or managing the air quality and the isolation of wards in a large hospital during a highly infectious disease outbreak. With reference to the challenge and the breadth of the fields about sustainability, quality of life, and indoor built environment, this Special Issue invites original research articles and reviews that aim to address specific aspects of the interactions among the three fields for achieving integrated solutions for better quality of life in sustainable buildings with higher energy efficiency and lower environmental impacts. Research topics may include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Human interaction with indoor environments;
  • Correlations between health, life quality and indoor environments;
  • Impact of climate change on human housing and lifestyles;
  • Energy consumption for improving indoor environment quality;
  • Sustainable building management;
  • Interaction between indoor and outdoor environments;
  • Applications and integrations of energy efficient technologies for high-performance buildings;
  • Smart home technologies and applications;
  • Retrofits of existing buildings for energy saving and their effect on indoor air quality;
  • Building weatherization;
  • Energy efficiency and building design solutions;
  • Building ventilation strategies and management during a pandemic;
  • Future homes and low impact living;
  • Renewable energy applications for heating, cooling, and/or cooking.

Dr. Yigang Sun
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. 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

  • sustainability
  • energy efficiency
  • indoor environment quality
  • comfort, health, and wellbeing
  • life quality
  • building performance
  • sustainable homes
  • smart buildings
  • innovative building technology
  • energy impact
  • heating and cooling
  • ventilation
  • energy-efficient retrofitting
  • weatherization
  • resilient construction and retrofit
  • decarbonizing buildings
  • ecological building

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

21 pages, 2235 KiB  
Article
Enhancing Building Sustainability: Integrating User Behaviour and Solar Orientation in the Thermal Performance of Houses
by Kácia Henderson Barbosa, Taylana Piccinini Scolaro and Enedir Ghisi
Sustainability 2024, 16(19), 8349; https://doi.org/10.3390/su16198349 - 25 Sep 2024
Viewed by 1248
Abstract
The literature highlights the importance of building orientation for energy efficiency. However, assessing its impact without considering user behaviour is insufficient. This study aims to evaluate the influence of user behaviour on the impact of solar orientation on the thermal performance of a [...] Read more.
The literature highlights the importance of building orientation for energy efficiency. However, assessing its impact without considering user behaviour is insufficient. This study aims to evaluate the influence of user behaviour on the impact of solar orientation on the thermal performance of a single-family house. The research methodology involved five steps: monitoring a house in Goiânia (Brazil), calibrating the model, determining use patterns to identify user behaviour, conducting computer simulation, and performing data analysis. Questionnaires were applied in 66 houses to understand how occupants use rooms, operate doors and windows, and use electrical appliances, lighting, and air-conditioning. The use patterns were applied in simulations across eight main orientations. The thermal performance was measured by hours of thermal discomfort. Findings reveal that solar orientation individually does not define thermal performance. A house with low internal thermal loads, oriented east or west, can outperform a house oriented north or south with high internal thermal loads. Among the use patterns assessed, window operation, occupancy, and the electrical equipment in operation were the ones that most influenced the thermal performance of the monitored house. The study concludes that modifying user behaviour can significantly modify the thermal effects of solar orientation, influencing building sustainability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Efficiency and Life Quality in Indoor Environment)
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