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Special Issue "Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems II"

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A special issue of Buildings (ISSN 2075-5309). This special issue belongs to the section "Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 28 February 2024 | Viewed by 4435

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Benedetto Nastasi

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Guest Editor

Department of Planning, Design & Technology of Architecture, Sapienza University of Rome, Via Flaminia 72, 00196 Rome, Italy
Interests: building physics; building services engineering; building simulation; renewable energy technologies; indoor environmental quality; open data & energy analytics; energy efficiency; zero energy buildings; power-to-X solutions; buildings, district and national energy systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Danny Hin Wa Li

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Building Energy Research Group, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China
Interests: solar radiation and daylighting; energy-efficient building designs; energy conservation in buildings and building energy simulations

Dr. Shuqin Chen

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Guest Editor

Building Technology Institute, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
Interests: energy efficiency in buildings; regional building energy planning technology; application of renewable energy technologies in buildings; building performance simulation and application

Dr. Fernanda Rodrigues

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Guest Editor

RISCO, Civil Engineering Department, University of Aveiro, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal
Interests: buildings’ condition assessment; energy retrofit; climate changes; buildings’ sustainability; buildings’ durability and maintenance; risk assessment in the built environment; heritage building refurbishment; BIM – building information modeling; HBIM – heritage building information modeling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Christos Ioakimidis

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Center for Research and Technology Hellas/Hellenic Institute of Transport, CERTH/HIT, 6th Km Charilaou—Thermi Rd., Thermi, Thessaloniki, Macedonia, 57001 Hellas, Greece
Interests: intelligent energy/transport systems; sustainable mobility; autonomous vehicles; system integration; smart cities
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a new Collection titled “Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems Ⅱ”, which will collect papers invited by the Editorial Board Members.

The aim of this Collection is to provide a venue for networking and communication between Buildings and scholars in the field of Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems. All papers will be published in open access following peer review.

Dr. Benedetto Nastasi
Prof. Dr. Danny Hin Wa Li
Dr. Shuqin Chen
Dr. Fernanda Rodrigues
Dr. Christos Ioakimidis
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. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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
building environment
building physics
building systems

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

11 pages, 4101 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Determination of Climate-Based Daylight Metrics under 15 CIE (International Commission on Illumination) Standard Skies and Three Representative Skies

and

Buildings 2023, 13(10), 2523; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13102523 - 05 Oct 2023

Viewed by 427

Abstract

Daylighting serves as a crucial sustainable strategy in assessing the built environment. Climate-based daylight metrics (CBDMs) have been widely employed to evaluate the dynamic performance of daylight. However, conventional CBDM calculations heavily rely on time-consuming full-scale computer simulations. In addition, the CBDMs need representative annual daylight data that are essential for CBDM analysis, and can pose challenges in many locations. Even when suitable daylight data are available, they may not accurately reflect current trends and conditions. This study aims to determine the various CBDMs using both the 15 CIE Standard Skies and the three representative skies specific to Hong Kong. All data were simulated from a software named RADIANCE (version 5.3). The R²s of the CBDMs under both the 15 CIE Standard Skies and the three representative skies were more than 0.89, and the MBEs and RMSEs were not more than 5.4% and 9.1%, respectively, when the outdoor illuminance measured in 2004 was employed. The findings could be adopted for other locations where the required daylight parameters were not systematically recorded. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems II)

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13 pages, 1214 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Towards the Renovation of Energy-Intensive Building: The Impact of Lighting and Free-Cooling Retrofitting Strategies in a Shopping Mall

and

Buildings 2023, 13(6), 1409; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13061409 - 30 May 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 910

Abstract

One of the most energy-intensive types of buildings is commercial. Several works investigated the optimizations of Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems for achieving thermal comfort and indoor air quality. On the other hand, lighting systems play also a crucial role in minimizing energy consumption rates in a shopping mall and increasing its sustainability. Despite the relevant scientific research in the literature, to the best of our knowledge, there is no study that analyzes the impact of HVAC systems with and without the free-cooling option applied to a commercial building combined with lighting solutions. The combination of HVAC systems with free cooling and lighting retrofit strategies defines four energy scenarios, where the most efficient one is detected. The results show that the use of advanced technologies in lighting control systems has a double benefit: direct savings due to the better performance of the lighting fixtures and indirect savings due to the reduction in the thermal load with a consequent reduction in consumption levels for air conditioning. Additionally, a reduction of 51.7% in lighting consumption levels generated a 17.4% reduction in air conditioning levels. A total reduction in energy consumption rate of 33% was achieved. Since the lighting strategy demonstrates a relevant impact on reducing the global energy consumption of the shopping mall, a feasibility analysis is also presented. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems II)

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15 pages, 2304 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Environmental and Energy Renovation of a District as a Step towards the Smart Community: A Case Study of Tehran

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Buildings 2023, 13(6), 1402; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13061402 - 29 May 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 674

Abstract

As the world’s third-largest oil and natural gas producer, Iran consumed enormous amounts of non-renewable energy during the last twenty years. There are many obsolete buildings in the Iranian building stock, which required energy renovation. Many studies in the literature proposed energy retrofitting strategies to increase the efficiency of buildings, but few of them involve an energy network for the entire neighbourhood (such as district heating). Moreover, energy renovation is not sufficient to improve the smartness level of a community; in fact, it is essential to evaluate sustainable and social aspects. In this direction, this study aims to develop a comprehensive analysis of the current criticalities of a district in Tehran (District 5), proposing strategies to face the pollution of the city, provide a healthy environment for the citizens, and renovate the old buildings. The application of a decision support method is presented to set a priority ranking, pointing out the positive and negative impacts of each evaluated scenario. The energy renovation solution involved the installation of two storage tanks and solar collectors in each building and the connection with the district heating powered by waste to the energy plant. A multi-level car parking system and a noise mapping application were evaluated to solve mobility and pollution problems. Moving to the results, the priority ranking assesses that the most affordable action is the installation of a Solar Water Heater since energy and environmental indicators demonstrate its efficacy compared to the other solutions. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems II)

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23 pages, 4668 KiB

Open AccessArticle

An Analysis of Real-Time Measured Solar Radiation and Daylight and Its Energy Implications for Semi-Transparent Building-Integrated Photovoltaic Façades

Danny H. W. Li

Emmanuel I. Aghimien

and

Khalid Alshaibani

Buildings 2023, 13(2), 386; https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings13020386 - 31 Jan 2023

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1544

Abstract

For analyzing cooling loads, day-lighting, and building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems, solar radiation and daylight illuminance data are required. However, these data are sparse. Furthermore, studies have shown that the energy potential of building-integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems for the entire building skin (BS) and unconventional orientations, such as east, west, and north need further exploration. Thus, this study presents findings from measured solar data and an energy analysis of semi-transparent BIPV. Firstly, solar radiation and daylight data measured from June 2019 to May 2020 in Hong Kong are presented. The analyzed solar-radiation data were used to determine the solar-energy potential of BIPV for BS and the four principal building orientations (i.e., N, E, S and W). With a simple analytical approach, the solar data’s building-energy implications for semi-transparent BIPV were assessed. The findings showed that the annual average horizontal global-, diffuse-, and direct-irradiance values were 291.8, 164.3, and 127.5 W/m²/day, respectively. Similarly, 120, 72, and 107 klux were obtained as the peak global, diffuse, and direct illuminance, respectively. Furthermore, the results show the potential of using BIPV on the entire BS in Hong Kong. It was also observed that a semi-transparent BIPV façade integrated with daylight-linked lighting controls could offer significant energy savings in electric lighting and cooling while also producing energy. In particular, BIPV façades with a large window-to-wall ratio (WWR) of 80% can provide an overall energy benefit of up to 7126 kWh. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Editorial Board Members’ Collection Series: Building Energy, Physics, Environment, and Systems II)

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