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Energies
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Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice
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Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2023) | Viewed by 8056

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Rob Barthorpe

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Sheffield, Mappin Street, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK
Interests: uncertainty quantification; verification and validation; dynamic systems; predictive control; energy system optimisation
Dr. Ahsan Khan

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea SA1 8EN, UK
Interests: low/zero carbon building design; life cycle analysis; whole life performance; thermal storage; retrofit scale-up; urban digitisation and reconstruction
Dr. Josh Sykes

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Engineering, Swansea University, Swansea SA1 8EN, UK
Interests: building controls; IoT; machine learning; linked data and ontologies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues, 

Recent years have seen a rapid growth of interest in the role Active Buildings may play in achieving net-zero carbon targets. Active Buildings represent a novel built environment asset class whereby individual buildings are able to support the wider energy network. The concept is founded on the intelligent integration of energy generation, conversion and storage technologies at building-level, community-level and beyond to meet heat, power and transport needs. While many of the required contributing low-carbon technologies are already available, substantial technological, social and economic barriers must be overcome in order for the potential of Active Buildings to be fully realised. 

This special issue will present a collection of studies drawn from the portfolio of work being undertaken by the UK’s Active Building Centre Research Programme (ABC-RP). Topics to be covered include:

  • 3D Stock Modelling
  • Energy Network Modelling
  • Retrofit Optimisation
  • Model- and Data-Driven Predictive Control
  • Multi-vector Energy Optimisation
  • Building Energy Data Monitoring
  • Orthothermography
  • Thermochemical Storage
  • Phase Change Material Storage
  • User Perceptions of Low-Carbon Technology
  • Decision Making Under Uncertainty.

Dr. Rob Barthorpe
Dr. Ahsan Khan
Dr. Josh Sykes
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. Energies 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 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

  • thermal storage
  • Internet of Things
  • demand side management
  • machine learning
  • predictive control
  • building physics
  • smart networks

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 395 KiB  
Article
From Active Houses to Active Homes: Understanding Resident Experiences of Transformational Design and Social Innovation
by Fiona Shirani, Kate O’Sullivan, Rachel Hale, Nick Pidgeon and Karen Henwood
Energies 2022, 15(19), 7441; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15197441 - 10 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1470
Abstract
Active Buildings can contribute to efforts to address decarbonisation and climate change targets, and have the potential to support social aspirations for technical and infrastructural change. Yet achieving such goals is challenging. Active Homes as a type of Active Building represent a particularly [...] Read more.
Active Buildings can contribute to efforts to address decarbonisation and climate change targets, and have the potential to support social aspirations for technical and infrastructural change. Yet achieving such goals is challenging. Active Homes as a type of Active Building represent a particularly interesting prospect; altering how energy is produced, distributed, and consumed, but also how homes are designed, constructed, and lived in are studied. Active Homes are designed with expectations of how residents will engage with them, but residents do not always live in the homes in ways envisaged by developers. Hence, there is a risk that the homes will not be experienced as comfortable living environments, or otherwise perform as anticipated. Thus, understanding resident perspectives is crucial to the successful wider rollout of Active Homes. We draw on social science research with designers, developers, and residents to explore expectations of life in an Active Home. Our longitudinal research design enables us to contrast early expectations with post-occupancy experiences, elucidating what residents consider to be successful aspects of Active Home developments. Our research reveals instances where expectations remain unfulfilled, or where living in the homes has been experienced as challenging or disruptive. In highlighting such insights, we offer recommendations relevant for future developments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice)
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17 pages, 2971 KiB  
Article
Business Models for Active Buildings
by Tom Elliott, Joachim Geske and Richard Green
Energies 2022, 15(19), 7389; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15197389 - 08 Oct 2022
Viewed by 1365
Abstract
Active Buildings that allow users to adjust their demands on the grid to the needs of the energy system could greatly assist the transition to net zero, but will not be widely adopted unless the businesses involved can make money from doing so. [...] Read more.
Active Buildings that allow users to adjust their demands on the grid to the needs of the energy system could greatly assist the transition to net zero, but will not be widely adopted unless the businesses involved can make money from doing so. We describe the construction, flexibility and information supply chains of activities needed to make these buildings work. Drawing on the results of an expert workshop, we set out four possible business models deserving further investigation. Developers may find it profitable to build or upgrade energy-efficient buildings with the monitoring and control equipment needed to adjust demand and energy storage as required, selling them soon after completion. Aggregators monitor the state of the building and communicate with the energy system to adjust the building’s demand while maintaining comfort levels, in return for suitable payments. Energy service companies may sell energy-as-a-service and own the equipment instead of a consumer who wishes to minimize their upfront costs, and the idea of an active, energy-efficient, building may be attractive to the tenants of the new group of all-inclusive rental companies, and hence to those companies. Our discussion shows that each is an evolution of an existing (successful) business model, but that further work will be needed to evaluate their profitability when applied to Active Buildings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice)
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13 pages, 3340 KiB  
Article
Scalable Residential Building Geometry Characterisation Using Vehicle-Mounted Camera System
by Menglin Dai, Wil O. C. Ward, Hadi Arbabi, Danielle Densley Tingley and Martin Mayfield
Energies 2022, 15(16), 6090; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15166090 - 22 Aug 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1491
Abstract
Residential buildings are an important sector in the urban environment as they provide essential dwelling space, but they are also responsible for a significant share of final energy consumption. In addition, residential buildings that were built with outdated standards usually face difficulty meeting [...] Read more.
Residential buildings are an important sector in the urban environment as they provide essential dwelling space, but they are also responsible for a significant share of final energy consumption. In addition, residential buildings that were built with outdated standards usually face difficulty meeting current energy performance standards. The situation is especially common in Europe, as 35% of buildings were built over fifty years ago. Building retrofitting techniques provide a choice to improve building energy efficiency while maintaining the usable main structures, as opposed to demolition. The retrofit assessment requires the building stock information, including energy demand and material compositions. Therefore, understanding the building stock at scale becomes a critical demand. A significant piece of information is the building geometry, which is essential in building energy modelling and stock analysis. In this investigation, an approach has been developed to automatically measure building dimensions from remote sensing data. The approach is built on a combination of unsupervised machine learning algorithms, including K-means++, DBSCAN and RANSAC. This work is also the first attempt at using a vehicle-mounted data-capturing system to collect data as the input to characterise building geometry. The developed approach is tested on an automatically built and labelled point cloud model dataset of residential buildings and shows capability in acquiring comprehensive geometry information while keeping a high level of accuracy when processing an intact model. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice)
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21 pages, 3081 KiB  
Article
Towards Active Buildings: Stakeholder Perceptions of the Next Generation of Buildings
by Elli Nikolaidou, Ian Walker, David Coley, Stephen Allen, Daniel Fosas and Matthew Roberts
Energies 2022, 15(15), 5706; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15155706 - 05 Aug 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1235
Abstract
Several regulations and standards have been developed to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, but these have failed to provide a clear pathway to a net zero future. Hence, we recently introduced the Active Building Code (ABCode). This provides guidance on reducing the [...] Read more.
Several regulations and standards have been developed to reduce the carbon footprint of buildings, but these have failed to provide a clear pathway to a net zero future. Hence, we recently introduced the Active Building Code (ABCode). This provides guidance on reducing the environmental impact of the next generation of buildings, termed Active Buildings (ABs), through their synergy with the grid. This paper aims to illuminate the regulatory landscape, justify our initial proposal for the ABCode, and reveal opportunities and challenges to the popularisation of ABs. Twelve online focus group discussions were conducted, with thirty stakeholders in total, all selected on the basis of their expertise. A grounded theory approach identified five core themes in such discussions. These strongly overlap with what is incorporated in the ABCode, suggesting the code successfully captures issues important to experts. Stakeholders defined ABs as responsive buildings and proposed both energy and carbon are considered in their assessment. They hence aligned with the definition and evaluation framework proposed by the ABCode. Finally, stakeholders considered people’s tendency to prioritise capital cost as the greatest challenge to the popularisation of ABs, and the increasing demand for healthy environments as its greatest opportunity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice)
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22 pages, 4171 KiB  
Article
A Backwards Induction Framework for Quantifying the Option Value of Smart Charging of Electric Vehicles and the Risk of Stranded Assets under Uncertainty
by Spyros Giannelos, Stefan Borozan and Goran Strbac
Energies 2022, 15(9), 3334; https://doi.org/10.3390/en15093334 - 03 May 2022
Cited by 11 | Viewed by 1482
Abstract
The anticipated electrification of the transport sector may lead to significant increase in the future peak electricity demand, resulting in potential violations of network constraints. As a result, a considerable amount of network reinforcement may be required in order to ensure that the [...] Read more.
The anticipated electrification of the transport sector may lead to significant increase in the future peak electricity demand, resulting in potential violations of network constraints. As a result, a considerable amount of network reinforcement may be required in order to ensure that the expected additional demand from electric vehicles that are to be connected will be safely accommodated. In this paper we present the Backwards Induction Framework (BIF), which we use for identifying the optimal investment decisions, for calculating the option value of smart charging of EV and the cost of stranded assets; these concepts are crystallized through illustrative case studies. Sensitivity analyses depict how the option value of smart charging and the optimal solution are affected by key factors such as the social cost associated with not accommodating the full EV capacity, the flexibility of smart charging, and the scenario probabilities. Moreover, the BIF is compared with the Stochastic Optimization Framework and key insights are drawn. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Active Buildings: From Theory to Practice)
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