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Milbrandt, Robert Marcel. "Simulating energy efficiency in laboratory buildings." [Ames, Iowa : Iowa State University], 2008.
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Örn, Tomas. "Energy efficiency in heritage buildings : Conservation approaches and their impact on energy efficiency measures." Licentiate thesis, Luleå tekniska universitet, Arkitektur och vatten, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:ltu:diva-68405.
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The impeding climate change challenge urges for a reduction of energy use in the built environment. Buildings account for nearly 40% of the total energy use and about 35% of the greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. EU member states are required to improve the energy efficiency of the existing building stock, for example by sharpening building regulations and developing enforcement schemes. Since energy efficiency retrofits can affect irreplaceable values in heritage buildings, heritage buildings are often excluded from mandatory demands aiming at reducing the energy use in buildings. However, saving energy have gradually become embraced by the conservation community and heritage buildings with are seen as part of the solution. This licentiate thesis discusses the methods to identify heritage significance in a building and how the underlying theory determines different scenarios in a energy retrofitting process. The choice of conservation theory and conservation approach will affect the success the energy retrofitting process and determine how much the energy use that can be reduced. This thesis therefore suggests a framework to understand the different interpretation of the impacts that one could exert either by having an Objectivistic or Relative conservation value approach.. Based on this framework, a decision-support tool is developed to further detail the impacts of such approaches for different energy measures. Other results show that a majority of reviewed research publications focused on the operational energy in a building and only a few were concerned with energy use over the entire life- cycle of a building. These analyses are used to evaluate where most energy savings can be made, and often pinpoint weak spots in the building’s envelope or technical system. If it was mentioned at all, the influence of cultural and historical factors on energy efficiency measures as applied to heritage buildings tended to be assessed only briefly. Indeed, the majority does not describe conservation principles or even mention the methodology used – if any – for assessing or defining heritage values. Instead, researchers often show an explicit (sometimes an implicit) understanding of conservation as essentially something that is not destructive of original construction material and hence the authenticity of a building. This licentiate thesis is a compilation thesis, consisting of one separate sub-study, one literature review and an extended cover essay. The study is oriented towards a Swedish and European context, especially when it comes to climate conditions and discussions on building regulations and the theory and practice of architectural conservation. It addresses the growing research field of energy efficiency in heritage buildings and the thesis aims to contribute to an increased understanding on how the process of assessment and evaluation of heritage significance in buildings affects the making of heritage buildings more energy efficient. The main research question is: How do different approaches for assessing and evaluating heritage significance in buildings affect possible technical energy saving measures in heritage buildings?<br>Klimatförändringarna driver utvecklingen mot att energianvändningen i den byggda miljön behöver minska. Byggnader står för nästan 40% av den totala energianvändningen och cirka 35% av utsläppen av växthusgaser i Europa. EUs medlemsländer är bundna att förbättra energieffektiviteten hos befintliga byggnader, till exempel genom att skärpa byggreglerna och utveckla handlingsplaner. Eftersom energieffektiviseringar kan påverka värden i kulturhurhistoriska byggnader, är dessa ofta undantagna från krav som syftar till att minska energianvändningen i byggnader. Energibesparing och resurshushållning har gradvis blivit omfamnad av kulturmiljösektorn och kulturhistoriska byggnader betraktas allt mer som en del av lösningen på klimatförändringarna. I licentiatavhandlingen diskuteras metoderna för att identifiera kulturhistoriska värden i en byggnad och hur den underliggande teorin påverkar olika scenarier i en energieffektiviseringprocess. Valet av bevarandeteori och bevarandestrategi påverkar framgångsfaktorn i energieffektivseringen och hur mycket energianvändningen i en kulturhistorisk byggnad kan minskas. I denna avhandling föreslås därför ett teoretiskt ramverk för att förstå effekterna av de olika kulturhistoriska bedömningar som kan göras, antingen genom att använda ett objektivistiskt eller en relativ syn på hur en en byggnads kulturhistoriska värden skapas och bäst bevaras. Utifrån detta teoretiska ramverk har ett stöd för beslutsfattande utvecklats för att ytterligare beskriva effekterna av de olika bevarandestrategiernas påverkan på implementeringen av olika energieffektiviserande åtgärder. Andra resultat visar att en majoritet av de granskade forskningspublikationerna fokuserade på den operativa energin i en byggnad och bara ett fåtal gällde energianvändning under hela livscykeln i en byggnad. Dessa analyser används för att utvärdera var de flesta energibesparingar kan göras och ofta identifiera svaga punkter i byggnadens klimatskal eller tekniska system. Om det nämndes alls tenderade inflytandet av kulturella och historiska faktorer på energieffektivitetsåtgärder som tillämpas på arvsbyggnader endast att bedömas kortfattat. Faktum är att majoriteten av de genomgångna publikationerna inte beskriver bevarandeprinciper och inte nämner den metod som används för att bedöma eller definiera kulturhistoriska värden. Istället används ofta en explicit (ibland en implicit) förståelse för bevarande som i huvudsak något som inte förstör ursprungligt material och därmed autenticitet i en byggnad. Denna licentiatavhandling består av en separat undersökning, en litteraturöversikt och en utökad kappa. Studien är inriktad på ett svenskt och europeiskt sammanhang, särskilt när det gäller klimatförhållanden och diskussioner om byggregler och teori och praktik för kulturhistoriskt bevarande av byggnader. Den är en del av det växande forskningsområdet energieffektivisering i kulturhistoriska byggnader och avhandlingen syftar till att bidra till en ökad förståelse för hur utvärderingen av kulturhistoriska värden i byggnader påverkar arbetet med att göra dem mer energieffektiva. Huvudforskningsfrågan är: Hur påverkar olika metoder för bedömning och utvärdering av kulturhistoriska värden energibesparande åtgärder i kulturhistoriska byggnader?
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MELO, LUCIANA MONTICELLI DE. "BUILDINGS ENERGY EFFICIENCY–BUILDING OPTIMIZATION USING GENETIC ALGORITHMS." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2009. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=31949@1.
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PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO<br>COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIOR<br>PROGRAMA DE EXCELENCIA ACADEMICA<br>O crescente consumo de energia é preocupante, principalmente pelo uso de sistemas de condicionamento de ar e de iluminação artificial. Nas edificações modernas, os projetos arquitetônicos vêm negligenciando os fatores que proporcionam o conforto ambiental. Baseando-se nos conceitos da arquitetura sustentável,
esta dissertação propõe e modela um sistema que otimiza os parâmetros da edificação que influenciarão no consumo de energia elétrica, nos custos com a construção e na emissão de poluentes pela edificação. Propõe-se um modelo de algoritmos genéticos que, juntamente com um programa de simulação de energia, EnergyPlus, constitui o modelo evolucionário desenvolvido neste trabalho. Este modelo otimiza parâmetros como: dimensionamento de aberturas e de pédireito; orientação da edificação; condicionamento do ar; disposição de árvores no entorno da edificação; etc . O modelo evolucionário tem sua ação e eficácia testados em estudo de casos - edificações desenhadas por projetista -, em que se
alteram: espessura das paredes, altura de pé direito, largura de janelas, orientação quanto ao Norte geográfico, localização de elementos sombreantes (árvores), uso ou não de bloqueadores solares. Estes fatores influenciarão no conforto térmico da edificação e, consequentemente, no consumo elétrico dos sistemas de condicionamento de ar e de iluminação artificial, que por sua vez, influenciam os parâmetros
que se pretende otimizar. Os resultados obtidos mostram que as otimizações feitas pelo modelo evolucionário foram efetivas, minimizando o consumo de energia pelos sistemas de condicionamento de ar e de iluminação artificial em comparação com os resultados obtidos com as edificações originais fornecidas
pelo projetista.<br>The continuous rising on energy consumption is a concerning issue, especially regarding the use of air conditioning systems and artificial lighting. In modern buildings, architectural designs are neglecting the factors that provide environmental comfort in a natural way. Based on concepts of sustainable architecture, this work proposes and models a system that optimizes the parameters of a building that influence the consumption of electricity, the costs with the building itself, and the emission of pollutants by these buildings. For this purpose a genetic algorithm model is proposed, which works together with an energy simulation program called EnergyPlus, both comprising the evolutionary model developed in this work. This model is able to optimize parameters like: dimensions of windows and ceiling height; orientation of a building; air conditioning; location of trees around a building; etc. The evolutionary model has its efficiency tested in case studies - buildings originally designed by a designer -, and the following specifications provided by the designer have been changed by the evolutionary model: wall thickness, ceiling height, windows width, building orientation, location of elements that perform shading function (trees), the use (or not) of sun blockers. These factors influence the building s heat comfort and therefore the energy consumption of air conditioning systems and artificial lighting which, in turn, influence the parameters that are meant to be optimized. The results show that the optimizations made by the evolutionary model were effective, minimizing the energy consumption for air conditioning systems and artificial light in comparison with the results obtained with the original buildings provided by the designer.
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Shell, Kara. "Analysis of Energy Efficiency Strategies in Residential Buildings." The Ohio State University, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1276830510.
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Chan, Ming-yee. "The impact of energy efficiency regulation on building design in Hong Kong /." Hong Kong : University of Hong Kong, 1997. http://sunzi.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/record.jsp?B18735721.
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Støvne, Eivind Myklebust, and Isak Søgaard Vallinder. "Energy efficiency in glass buildings : A study about the energy efficiency of glass buildings in Stockholm and how related demands are met." Thesis, KTH, Hållbar utveckling, miljövetenskap och teknik, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-278157.
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The building and property sector stands for one third of the final energy usage in Sweden and this should be diminished, in order to reach goals within environmental sustainability. Glass is a poor thermal insulator but nevertheless a popular choice of material when constructing new buildings. The contradiction between need of energy efficiency and the wish for “glass buildings” led to the subject of this report. This Bachelor’s thesis examines how demands on energy efficiency is met in nine glass buildings in Stockholm. Glass buildings and the current legislation is discussed from a perspective of environmental sustainability. This was done by investigating the demands stated by Boverket from a historical perspective, executing quantitative measurements of heat transfer on elected objects, and interviewing stakeholders linked to the buildings and the Swedish legislation. The study shows that the construction of glass buildings has been possible due to a restructuring of the demands on energy efficiency and technical development. It was found, in most cases, that the shares of glass were in fact lower than apparent. A larger share of glass in the building envelope required creative measures to achieve energy solutions, within legislative demands. Nevertheless, the inlet of solar radiation heat is the greatest challenge. Despite the challenges, the desire for glass is rooted in well-being and aesthetic values, which insinuate that glass buildings will be included in the cityscape henceforth. The conclusions drawn from these results are that the energy performance of glass buildings is still weaker than conventional “solid wall buildings”. Enhancement regarding insulation abilities and improvements of excluding solar radiation must be realized to strengthen the environmental sustainability of this category of buildings.<br>Bygg- och fastighetssektorn står för en tredjedel av den slutliga energianvändningen i Sverige, vilken måste minimeras för att nå miljömässiga hållbarhetsmål. Att bygga i glas är populärt bland moderna byggnader, trots att glas har relativt låg termisk isolationsförmåga. Motsättningen mellan behovet av energieffektivitet och efterfrågan på “glashus” skapade ämnet för denna rapport. Detta kandidatexamensarbete utforskar hur energieffektivitetskrav möts i nio olika glasbyggnader i Stockholm. Glashus och nuvarande lagstiftning diskuteras ur ett miljömässigt hållbarhetsperspektiv. Detta gjordes genom undersökningar av Boverkets krav ur ett historiskt perspektiv, kvantitativa mätningar av värmeflöden, samt intervjuer med aktörer kopplade till byggnaderna och svensk bygglagstiftning. Studien visar att byggnation av glashus har blivit möjlig på grund av en omstrukturering av energieffektivitetskraven samt teknisk utveckling. Det visade sig att andelen glas i de undersökta byggnaderna oftast var lägre än det såg ut. Större andel glas i klimatskalet krävde kreativa åtgärder för att uppnå energilösningar inom lagstiftningen. Det visade sig också att solinstrålning var den största energiutmaningen för glasbyggnaderna. Trots utmaningarna finns värden anknutna till estetik och välmående som skapar en efterfrågan på glashus, och detta leder till att glashus fortfarande kommer inkluderas i stadsmiljön framöver. En slutsats från arbetet är att energiprestandan i glasbyggnader är svagare än för konventionella “tätväggsbyggnader”. Förbättringar av glaskonstruktionen gällande isolationsförmåga och utestängning av värme från solinstrålning måste realiseras för att stärka den miljömässiga hållbarheten för denna byggnadskategori.
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Joelsson, Anna. "Primary energy efficiency and CO2 mitigation in residential buildings." Doctoral thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Institutionen för teknik och hållbar utveckling, 2008. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-7865.
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In order to control climate change it is important to limit the atmosphericconcentration of carbon dioxide (CO2). Increased energy efficiency, as well as ashift from fossil fuels to renewable resources can reduce net CO2 emission. Theenergy required for constructing and operating buildings is significant in manycountries, and it is thus important to design energy efficient buildings and energysupply systems.Improvements in existing buildings are needed in order to achieve short-termemission reductions. The Swedish building stock expanded greatly during the1960s and 1970s. The energy efficiency of these houses was often quite low, andmany of them were built with resistance heating. In this thesis increased energyefficiency in such buildings is studied, as well as conversions from resistanceheating to other heating systems, and various technologies and fuels for theproduction of electricity and heat. The effects of these measures are analysed withrespect to primary energy use, CO2 emission and societal cost. The studies wereperformed using process-based systems analysis in a life-cycle perspective. Thesystem boundaries include energy chains from the natural resources to the usefulelectricity and heat in the houses. The results show that the choice of heatingsystem in the house has a greater effect on the primary energy use than measureson both the house envelope and the energy supply chains. District heating basedon cogeneration of heat and electricity and bedrock heat pumps were found to beenergy-efficient systems. The net emission of CO2 is dependent on the fuel and theCO2 emissions from these systems are comparable to those from a wood pelletboiler, if biomass-based supply chains are used. Conversion from resistanceheating to any of the other heating systems studied is also profitable from a societaleconomic perspective.The decision to implement energy-efficiency measures or install a new heatingsystem in a detached house is taken by the house owner. In order for successfulimplementation the alternatives must either be sufficiently attractive or incentivesor policy instruments that affects this large, inhomogeneous group must beimplemented. In this thesis, the house owners’ economic situation when changingthe heating system and implementing energy-efficiency measures on the buildingenvelope is analysed. The economic analysis includes current Swedish policyinstruments, such as an investment subsidy for heating system conversion, anincome tax deduction for replacing windows, levying a consumer electricity tax and increasing real estate tax. House owners’ perceptions of different heatingsystems are analysed through the results of comprehensive questionnaires. Societaleconomy, private economy and individuals’ perceptions are compared. Theconversion subsidy provides some incentive to house owners to act according tothe national energy policy, as does the electricity tax, which has a significantinfluence on consumer costs. The use of economic instruments seems efficient inpromoting systems in line with environmental goals since environmental factorsare ranked much lower by the home owners. However, the effect on the annualcost of most of the policy instruments studied is smaller than the price variationsbetween different energy suppliers. Energy suppliers thus have considerableopportunity to influence house owners.To achieve long-term changes in the building sector new houses should beconstructed with as low primary energy use and emission as possible, seen overtheir entire life cycle. The primary energy use is analysed for both the productionand operational phase of several types of residential buildings. When the demandfor operational primary energy decreases, due to a high energy standard orenergy-efficient supply, the relative importance of the energy required forproduction will increase. The amount of primary energy required for theproduction of a new low-energy building is significant compared with the primaryenergy required for space heating. One way of reducing both primary energy useand CO2 emission in the production phase is to use constructions with woodframes instead of concrete.The energy supply system is nevertheless still important also for low energybuildings. A new house built to passive standard, heated with fossil-fuel-basedresistance heating gives rise to higher primary energy use and CO2 emission than aconventional detached house from the 1970s that is heated with an energy-efficientbiomass-based heating system. The results thus indicate that wood-framed houseswith a high energy standard, together with efficient energy supply systems, couldbe an option for sustainable residential construction.
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Magnussen, Jonas. "Increased Energy Efficiency in Buildings using Model Predictive Control." Thesis, Norges teknisk-naturvitenskapelige universitet, Institutt for teknisk kybernetikk, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-13815.
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The main objective in this thesis is to explore if a model predictive control scheme can increase the energy efficiency in office buildings with waterborne heating systems. The number of office buildings is constantly increasing, which displays the importance of efficient control systems. Since the aim is to decrease the energy consumption, improving the control systems in existing buildings and developing smart control schemes for new buildings are equally important. That is why the vision in this thesis is to design a control scheme that theoretically can be introduced to all new and existingoffice buildings. The model predictive controller’s objective is therefore to minimize the supply water temperature to the heating system, while fulfilling a set of defined indoor temperature demands.The model is the most important tool when comparing different control schemes. It is derived using an electrical analogy, and includes the most important thermodynamical relations in three rooms, a ventilation system, and a district heating system. To achieve optimal control of the supply-water temperature, a constrained optimization problem is introduced through a model predictive control scheme. Two versions of the model predictive control scheme are compared with a conventional control scheme. The first version is an ordinary formulation with some ad-hoc solutions including time-varying output constraints, while the second version is a robust formulation includingslack variables. The energy-consumption analysis imply that a 33 % - 34 % reduction potential is obtainable if a model predictive control scheme is introduced.
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Busic-Sontic, Ante. "Energy efficiency investments in residential buildings : does personality matter?" Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2019. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/284556.
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In recent years, energy efficiency in the built environment has been attracting considerable interest to mitigate energy consumption. A number of scientific studies indicate that rising air pollution, decreasing biodiversity, ocean acidification and other adverse effects on humans and the environment in recent decades are due to greenhouse gas emissions, and a substantial share of the emissions can be attributed to energy usage in residential buildings. Investments in energy-efficient technologies have been made to alleviate such human induced causes contributing to the emissions, but they are still far from widespread, calling for a thorough understanding of individuals' decision-making processes to promote further adoption of energy efficiency investments. Although personality has been widely recognised as an explanatory factor of behaviour, a rigorous discussion of it in the context of energy efficiency investments is missing. As such, to understand the role of personality traits in making high-cost energy efficiency investments in residential buildings, this research applies a multidisciplinary approach to derive theoretical models that are evaluated in subsequent empirical investigations using quantitative methods and data from the UK and Germany. The findings suggest three ways through which personality can influence energy efficiency investments. The first is an indirect impact of personality traits through risk preferences, in which the significance of the personality effects depends on the financial subsidy context. The second is an indirect effect of personality traits through environmental concern. The third way suggests an impact of personality traits through their importance for individuals' capability and willingness to consider peer behaviour.
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Unéus, Viktor. "Energy efficiency trends in large clusters of residential buildings." Thesis, Högskolan Dalarna, Energiteknik, 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:du-34559.
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The aim of this thesis work is to analyse the trends in heat use among Borlänge Energis district heating customer over the last 20 years. Several reports show that in general the buildings stock get more and more efficient, both in Sweden and other European countries, but will the same trend be seen among Borlänge Energis customer? Data of delivered heat to 324 customers, both single-family houses and multifamily houses, for the period of 1998-2018 is used in this study. The heating that is assumed for domestic hot water is calculated and the heat used for heating is temperature corrected so the heat needed for a normal year could be calculated. The investigated customers are divided into different groups representing various types of buildings with different building years. From this data it’s possible to see trends in heat usage in kWh/building, and year for various types of buildings over the period. Other studies on how trends for heating usage in buildings have report heating usage in kWh/(m2,year). It wasn’t possible in this work to get data of the size of each building, which means that it’s not possible to compare the result from this study with other studies. However, assuming that the building area have been the same and that no extensions of the buildings have been done during the period, the trend in changed heat use should be the same, unless the result is presented in kWh/m2, year and kWh/building, year. The overall results show that there is a reduction in energy use in the buildings in Borlänge during the period 1998-2018. The decrease in heat use are in the order of 0.3 – 0.4 %/year, with larger decrease in multi-family houses. This is considerably less than the decrease of heat use in the buildings stock of 0.9 – 1.2 %/year reported for the entire building stock in Sweden during approximately the same period.
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Kumirai, Tichaona. "Energy efficiency interventions for residential buildings in Bloemfontein using passive energy techniques." Thesis, Bloemfontein : Central University of Technology, Free State, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/11462/124.
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Thesis (M. Tech. (Mech. Eng.)) -- Central University of Technology, Free state, 2010<br>The purpose of this research is to minimize the use of active systems in providing thermal comfort in single-family detached, middle to high income residential buildings in Bloemfontein. The typical case study house was selected according to the criteria as reviewed by Mathews et al., (1999).
Measurements were taken for seven days (18 – 24 May 2009). The measurements were carried out in the winter period for Bloemfontein, South Africa. Ecolog TH1, humidity and temperature data logger was used in doing the measurements. These measurements included indoor temperatures and indoor relative humidity.
Temperature swings of 8.43 ºC and thermal lag of 1 hour were observed. For the period of seven days (168 hours), the house was thermally comfortable for 84 hours.
Thermal analysis for the base case house was done using Ecotect™ (building analysis software) and the simulated results were compared with the measured results. A mean bias error (MBE) of between 10.3% ≤≤11.5% was obtained on the initial calibration. The final calibration of the model yielded error between0.364% ≤≤0.365%. The final calibration model which presented a small error was adopted as the base case.
Passive strategies were incorporated to the Ecotect™ model (final calibrated model) singly and in combination; then both thermal and space load simulations were obtained and compared to simulations from the original situation (base case) for assessing improvements in terms of thermal comfort and heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) energy consumption. Annual HVAC electricity savings of up to 55.2 % were obtained from incorporating passive strategies in combination. Incorporating passive strategies resulted in small improvements in thermal comfort.
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Fore, Elizabeth K. "An analysis regarding energy efficiency in metro Atlanta's private office buildings." Thesis, Atlanta, Ga. : Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/29663.
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Thesis (M. S.)--Building Construction, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009.<br>Committee Chair: Kathy Roper; Committee Member: Daniel Castro-Lacouture; Committee Member: Linda Thomas-Mobley. Part of the SMARTech Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Collection.
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Fumagalli, Benjamin. "Energy performance assessment of collective housing buildings." Thesis, KTH, Tillämpad termodynamik och kylteknik, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-129240.
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This project has been carried out for the ALEC (Agence Locale de l'Energie et du Climat) of Grenoble urban area, a French energy and climate agency. It has been composed of several missions, all related to energy management in residential buildings. First, an annual energy use assessment have been conducted for two different building samples: the eco-district of De Bonne in Grenoble and a sample of about 25 social housing buildings over the region. These two assessments showed that the average energy performance of newly built buildings is improving every year, notably under the stimulation of innovative projects such as De Bonne. Then, a more precise follow-up of construction and renovation social housing projects enabled to learn more about how to maintain energy facilities and to detect some common technical issues. The global conclusion of this project is that, although buildings are better designed today, energy performance remains fragile notably during construction and operation. To cope with that, some solutions exist and should be more systematically applied in future construction or renovation projects.
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Jimoh, Bukola S. "Energy Efficiency Technologies for Buildings: Potential for Energy, Cost, and Carbon Emission Savings." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2011. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cmc_theses/180.
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Buildings are a significant energy consumer and are responsible for an increasingly large percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, currently between 30 and 40 percent. Energy efficiency presents unique opportunities for building owners to reduce their environmental footprint and add value through cost savings, tax deductions, and increased market value. An analysis of 183 samples of efficiency measures in seven technology categories found that 74% of efficiency investments had a positive net present value. Building automation system and chiller plant improvements had the highest mean energy and carbon dioxide savings per square foot. Additionally, building automation systems had, on average the highest return on investment, approximately $800 above the cost of implementation per one thousand square feet. Only building envelope modifications had a negative mean return on investment. Building automation system upgrades avoided an average of 350 pounds of CO2e for every dollar spent, reducing a building’s total carbon footprint by as much as 28%. The results suggest that a significant opportunity for cost, energy, and emission savings is available across all technology categories.
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Fedoruk, M. "Energy efficiency in buildings as one of the solutions for achieving energy security." Thesis, Sumy State University, 2014. http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/36062.
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Energy is essential for economic development, food production and global security. According to the UN, the world will need at least 45% more energy by 2030.
It is well known that resources we are using today for the energy production have very negative impact on the planet, especially for the climate change. Alternative resources that are renewable and don't have CO2 emission also have own disadvantages. For example, solar panels are quite expensive, depend on climate, need a lot of place and also there is a big issue with utilization of panels in the end of their life cycle. Wind farmas and hydroelectric power stations are located to far from consumers and transmission looses are very high in these cases. Indeed, in future scientists will solve these problems, but so far we have to deal with them. It means that the best solution would be to combine alternative energy resources and energy saving.
When you are citing the document, use the following link http://essuir.sumdu.edu.ua/handle/123456789/36062
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Bar, Ilan Yael. "Policy mechanisms for promoting energy efficiency in buildings in Israel /." [Sede-Boqer] : Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Jacob Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Albert Katz International School for Desert Studies, 2008. http://aranne5.lib.ad.bgu.ac.il/others/Bar-IlanYael.pdf.
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Børke, Ragnhild. "Energy efficiency in non-residential buildings: Motivation, barriers and strategies." Thesis, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Industrial Ecology Programme, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:no:ntnu:diva-1406.
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<p>In the thesis, causes of the energy efficiency gap, i.e. that seemingly attractive investments in energy efficiency are systematically passed over are explored, and policy instruments and business strategies that can be used to overcome this inefficiency are discussed. The economic literature of the efficiency gap focuses either on factors that are not included in the calculations of the gap, and that may explain why observed behaviour is actually efficient, or market failures that justifies policy intervention. In response to the economic literature, organizational and behavioural approaches have arisen, focusing on factors that preclude some of the assumptions made in economic theory.</p><p>A case study of four organizations has been carried out, investigating the decision processes, investment rules and motivation for energy efficiency measures. The main results are that all the organizations work systematically with energy observation and improving practices, while larger investments seem to be less prioritized. The building managers seem to cope with uncertainty by being conservative. Direct economic profitability is considered sufficient motivation for implementing energy-efficiency measures, while at the same time, the choice of investment objects is guided by strategic targets or general desirability. Capital-rationing occurs, but this competition among profitable projects is not considered a problem in the organizations. There is also some evidence of lack of incentives for energy conservation among occupants. A possible connection between emphasis on environmental results centrally in the organization and improvement in energy efficiency is established, and there are some indications that the start-up of an energy program depends on individuals.</p><p>The discussion of strategies to increase implementation of energy efficiency measures focuses on how to allow for technological change, and particularly diffusion of technologies. In this regard, looking for positive feed-back loops is important. A combination of market-based and behavioural instruments seems appropriate. Three specific strategies are explored: energy contracting, energy certificates and start-up help for arranging goals and routines for improvement.</p>
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Martin, Eric Russell 1971. "Understanding the diffusion of energy efficiency technology in residential buildings." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41422.
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Li, Qian. "Energy efficiency design of residential buildings in North China cities." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2009. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/54484/.
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With the rapid growth of housing development in China, energy inefficiency in domestic architectures is becoming a crucial problem for the nation's sustainable development. At present, the average energy consumption of housings in North China cities is three times that in developed countries. The energy conservation regulation introduced by the government requires 65% heating energy saving in dwellings compared with the 1980's standard. However most of the current buildings cannot meet that regulation the problem is mainly due to the lack of detailed technology and construction requirements, and difficulties in relation to enforcement. The main aim of this research is to investigate the potential of using environmental design strategies to increase the energy efficiency of residential architectures in North China cities while provide reasonable comfort conditions. Literature review, on-site observations, field experiments and computer simulation were used. The field experiments were conducted in five flats in Tianjin and Xi'an cities to assess their thermal performance. Thermal simulations by using the building energy model HTB2 were employed to analysis these designs, and what improvements can be reasonably achieved, in line with China's targets for reducing housing energy demand by adapting certain environmental design strategies. The findings of this work showed that with the adaptation of environmental design strategies, significant improvements of energy efficiency of residential buildings in North China cities can be achieved and considerable portion of energy can be saved. The most effective parameter in heating reduction is improve thermal insulation, having 50mm and 100mm polystyrene insulation achieved reductions of 26.5% and 38.8‰ respectively. Reduce the infiltration rate is the second most effective method, limit the air change rate to 0.5 ach reduced 21.6% of the heating demand from the existing condition. The parameters that reduce most cooling demand are having a reasonable window area and night time controlled ventilation the reduction rate is around 23% and 13% respectively. Moreover, combining appropriate design parameters will maximise their effectiveness in energy reduction. Having parameters including appropriate glazing ratio, improve insulation of the building envelope, reduce infiltration etc. will enable case studies to match the 65% saving regulations straightforward and the cooling load was also substantially reduced. Moreover, by following further modification suggestions, the energy reduction rate reached 90%. Considerable reduction in energy use and carbon emission can be achieved in North China cities and other places experiencing similar climates, by adapting the suggested design strategies. The findings of this research could help the decision-makers and architects to improve thermal performance and energy efficiency of both existing housings and future designs.
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Kubulenso, Saga, and Gisela Norman. "Energy efficiency in apartment buildings : A study in how energy consumption in apartment buildings have changed in recent years." Thesis, KTH, Industriell ekologi, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-210734.
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This report covers the development in energy efficiency regarding apartment buildings inSweden. The purpose was to investigate the energy efficiency measures done in the last 20 years. The chosen subjects were heat supply, domestic hot water, insulation, windows and ventilation. Each subject was thoroughly investigated. Regulations were compared to measures taken. The chosen subjects have been examined regarding energy efficiency. However, the largerchanges in each area happened as a result of the oil crisis in the 1970’s. The measures done inthe last 20 years mainly focuses on the behaviour of the resident. Energy efficiency in the futuremainly focuses on technology to help the user save energy without changing their behaviour. There are further technical development opportunities regarding heat supply.
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Martínez, Pérez Carmen Coronada. "Achieving sustainability in Swedish historic buildings." Thesis, KTH, Energiteknik, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-150694.
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The increasing world energy demand has become the need of achieving energy efficiency and sustainable practices a key element in order to ensure the future of the societies. In Sweden, buildings accounts for 40% of total energy consumption. Within a sector that consumes almost half of the energy in the country it is possible to identify a group of buildings which generally presents a higher consumption and bigger problems, the historic and protected buildings. There is big room for improvement in the field of achieving sustainability in historic building although most of this improvements are constrained by limitations and protections due to their condition. Studying this limitations and needs for improvement of these buildings it is possible to come up with energy efficient solutions according with the regulations. The aim of this report will be achieving sustainability in Swedish historic/protected buildings, while respecting the applicable law to ensure that heritage and cultural value is respected, by proposing energy efficiency improvement measures that requires a feasible investment with a reasonable pay-back time.
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Persson, Johannes. "Low-energy buildings : energy use, indoor climate and market diffusion." Doctoral thesis, KTH, Energiprocesser, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-143480.
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Low-energy buildings have, in recent years, gained attention and moved towards a large-scale introduction in the residential sector. During this process, national and international criteria for energy use in buildings have become stricter and the European Union has through the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive imposed on member states to adapt their building regulations for ‘Nearly Zero Energy Buildings’, which by 2021 should be standard for new buildings. With a primary focus on new terraced and detached houses, this thesis analyses how the concept of low-energy buildings may be further developed to reduce the energy use in the residential sector. The main attention is on the technical performance in terms of indoor climate and heat consumption as well as on the market diffusion of low-energy buildings into the housing market. A multidisciplinary approach is applied, which here means that the concept of low-energy buildings is investigated from different perspectives as well as on different system levels. The thesis thus encompasses methods from both engineering and social sciences and approaches the studied areas through literature surveys, interviews, assessments and simulations. The thesis reveals how an increased process integration of the building’s energy system can improve the thermal comfort in low-energy buildings. Moreover, it makes use of learning algorithms – in this case artificial neural networks – to study how the heat consumption can be predicted in a low-energy building in the Swedish climate. The thesis further focuses on the low-energy building as an element in our society and it provides a market diffusion analysis to gain understanding of the contextualisation process. In addition, it suggests possible approaches to increase the market share of low-energy buildings.<br><p>QC 20140321</p>
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Hurwitz, Zach Lawrence. "Economic Efficiency and Carbon Emissions in MES with Flexible Buildings." ScholarWorks @ UVM, 2020. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/1171.
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Multi-energy systems offer an opportunity to leverage energy conversion processes and temporary energy storage mechanisms to reduce costs and emissions during operation of campuses, cities, and buildings. With increasing options for flexibility in demand-side resources it is possible to meet demand without sacrificing comfort and convenience of MES occupants.
This Thesis develops a multi-period, linear optimization model of an MES with flexible buildings that captures nonlinearities in the efficiency of energy conversion processes. The flexible buildings are parametrized, in part, based on historical data from a college campus in Vermont, USA. The idea of the MES model is to investigate the role that flexibility plays in reducing costs and emissions for a small campus relative to that of a possible carbon tax. The operation of the MES is optimized to reduce costs based on representative seasons. Interestingly, it is found that when utilized optimally, flexible buildings allows for a more cost and energy effective method of not only meeting demand but also reducing carbon emissions in the process.
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Erkiaga, Ane. "Energy efficiency actions in buildings : How District Heating system is affected." Thesis, Högskolan i Gävle, Akademin för teknik och miljö, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hig:diva-14727.
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Åberg, Magnus. "System Effects of Improved Energy Efficiency in Swedish District-Heated Buildings." Doctoral thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för teknikvetenskaper, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-229477.
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To alleviate global warming, European-Union member states must reduce primary energy use, emit less carbon dioxide (CO2), and increase renewable energy use. Buildings constitute a great potential for energy savings, but saving energy in district-heated buildings influences combined heat and power (CHP) production, other electricity generation, and global CO2 emissions. This thesis investigates the system effects from Swedish district heating production caused by district heating demand changes due to energy conservation in buildings. The cost-optimising linear programming modelling tools MODEST and FMS, the latter developed in the context of this thesis, are used to describe present district heating production and to investigate the impact of heat-demand reductions in twelve Swedish district heating systems, four of them representing all Swedish district heating. Energy savings in district-heated, multi-family residential buildings yield a lower, more seasonally levelled district heating demand. These demand changes mainly reduce use of fossil-fuel and biomass for heat production. CHP production is significantly reduced if it supplies intermediate or peak district heating load. The αsystem value (ratio between generated CHP electricity and produced district heating) increases by demand reductions if CHP mainly supplies base district heating load. CO2 emissions due to district heat production depend on the approach used for CO2 assessment of electricity, and are generally reduced with heat demand reductions, unless the share of CHP production is large and the reduced fuel use yields smaller emission reductions than the emission increase from power production that replaces reduced CHP generation. In total, heat demand reductions reduce CO2 emissions due to Swedish district heating, and the district heating systems even constitute a carbon sink at certain energy conservation levels. If saved biomass replaces fossil fuels elsewhere, a lower heat demand reduces CO2 emissions for every studied district heating system.
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Virote, João Tiago Vieira de Sousa. "Algorithms and methodologies for decision support in energy efficiency on buildings." Master's thesis, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/4873.
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Dissertação apresentada na faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para a obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores<br>Buildings worldwide account for approximately 40 percent of the global energy consumption and the resulting carbon footprint significantly exceeds those of all transportation combined.
However, large and attractive opportunities to reduce energy use in buildings exist today. To reach ambitious energy efficiency goals, the building sector must undergo through technological innovation, informed customer choices, and smart business decisions.
Existing building simulation tools provide users with key building performance indicators,such as energy use and demand. However, these tools do not deal with activities performed by building occupants and with the resulting utilization of spaces. At best, they rely on assumptions referring to human behavior. As a result, energy prediction often does not represent the real building utilization. Therefore, it is assumed that user behavior is one of the
most important input parameter influencing the results of building performance simulations.
A methodology for constructing an energy consumption model that reflects the human
behavior dynamics and occupancy patterns within a building is presented. This research will provide a possible methodology for the pillars of future work in modeling the building usage under real patterns of utilization. A simulator has been developed from a model where both human behavior and building have been incorporated. Simulations have been performed to test different behavioral situations where the developed models and algorithms have been applied for prediction purposes. The proposed methodologies focus on the applicability of a
rule-based expert system to support the simulator and stochastic modeling. The building’s occupant behavior is modeled with a hidden Markov model and the building’s spaces are described as Markov chains.
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Pisarev, V., and O. O. Kuznetsova. "Energy efficiency retrofits of residential buildings in Ukraine. A case study." Thesis, Київський національний університет технологій та дизайну, 2017. https://er.knutd.edu.ua/handle/123456789/6740.
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Negrea, Andrei Liviu. "Optimization of energy efficiency for residential buildings by using artificial intelligence." Thesis, Lyon, 2020. http://www.theses.fr/2020LYSEI090.
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La consommation, en général, représente le processus d’utilisation d’un type de ressource où des économies doivent être réalisées. La consommation d’énergie est devenue l’un des principaux problèmes d’urbanisation et de crise énergétique, car l’épuisement des combustibles fossiles et le réchauffement climatique mettent en péril l’utilisation de l’énergie des plantes. Cette thèse présent une méthode d’économie d’énergie a été adoptée pour la réduction de consommation d’énergie prévu le secteur résidentiel et les maisons passives. Un modèle mathématique basé sur des mesures expérimentales a été développé pour simuler le comportement d’un laboratoire d’essai de l’UPB. Le protocole expérimental a été réalisé à la suite d’actions telles que : la construction de bases de données sur les paramètres, la collecte de données météorologiques, l’apport de flux auxiliaires tout en considérant le comportement humain. L’algorithme de contrôle-commande du système est capable de maintenir une température constante à l’intérieur du bâtiment avec une consommation minimale d’énergie. Les mesures et l’acquisition de données ont été configurées à deux niveaux différents: les données météorologiques et les données sur les bâtiments. La collection de données est faite sur un serveur qui a été mis en œuvre dans l’installation de test en cours d’exécution d’un algorithme complexe qui peut fournir le contrôle de consommation d’énergie. La thèse rapporte plusieurs méthodes numériques pour envisage la consommation d’énergie, utilisée avec l’algorithme de contrôle. Un cas expérimental basé sur des méthodes de calcul dynamiques pour les évaluations de performance énergétique de construction a été faite à Grenade, en Espagne, l’information qui a été plus tard utilisée dans cette thèse. L’estimation des paramètres R-C avec la prévision du flux de chaleur a été faite en utilisant la méthode nodal, basée sur des éléments physiques, des données d’entrée et des informations météorologiques. La prévision d’énergie de consommation présent des résultats améliorés tandis que la collecte de données IoT a été téléchargée sur une carte à base de système de tarte aux framboises. Tous ces résultats ont été stables montrant des progrès impressionnants dans la prévision de la consommation d’énergie et leur application en énergie<br>Consumption, in general, represents the process of using a type of resource where savings needs to be done. Energy consumption has become one the main issue of urbanization and energy crisis as the fossil depletion and global warming put under threat the planet energy utilization. In this thesis, an automatic control of energy was developed to reduce energy consumption in residential area and passive house buildings. A mathematical model founded on empirical measurements was developed to emphasize the behavior of a testing laboratory from Universitatea Politehnica din București - Université Politechnica de Bucarest - Roumanie. The experimental protocol was carried out following actions such as: building parameters database, collecting weather data, intake of auxiliary flows while considering the controlling factors. The control algorithm is controlling the system which can maintain a comfortable temperature within the building with minimum energy consumption. Measurements and data acquisition have been setup on two different levels: weather and buildings data. The data collection is gathered on a server which was implemented into the testing facility running a complex algorithm which can control energy consumption. The thesis reports several numerical methods for estimating the energy consumption that is further used with the control algorithm. An experimental showcase based on dynamic calculation methods for building energy performance assessments was made in Granada, Spain, information which was later used in this thesis. Estimation of model parameters (resistances and capacities) with prediction of heat flow was made using nodal method, based on physical elements, input data and weather information. Prediction of energy consumption using state-space modeling show improved results while IoT data collection was uploaded on a Raspberry Pi system. All these results were stable showing impressive progress in the prediction of energy consumption and their application in energy field
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Huang, Yuan. "Methodology of climatic design of urban district for buildings energy efficiency." Ecole Centrale de Nantes, 2010. http://www.theses.fr/2010ECDN0010.
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Jakob, Martin. "Essays in economics of energy efficiency in residential buildings : an empirical analysis /." Zürich : ETH, 2007. http://e-collection.ethbib.ethz.ch/show?type=diss&nr=17157.
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Hussein, Engy Samy. "Green architecture as an approach for increasing energy efficiency in Egyptian buildings." Thesis, Cardiff University, 2010. http://orca.cf.ac.uk/55882/.
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In the light of the growing global concerns about environmental problems and the importance of achieving sound management of the natural resources, this research proposal was developed. Though Egypt is now enjoying a secured energy supply for the short and medium terms, yet it is mainly dependent on fossil fuels. Building sector in 2007 was responsible for 23% of the total energy consumption in Egypt and is expected to reach 35% by 2030 and the construction sector growth rate was 15.8%. Developing an environmental assessment tool was the approach adopted by this study to address the building sector energy consumption levels in Egypt. The success of these tools in reshaping the design and practice worldwide has long been established. In the absence of an existing adequate measure to assess environmental buildings and with the concept of modern environmental design emerging in Egypt, the current study proposes the Egyptian Green Code for Buildings. The Egyptian Green Code for Buildings is an assessment tool specifically designed for the Egyptian environment. Three phases of surveys (questionnaires and interviews) were developed to create, evaluate and validate the proposed code. With the collaboration of the field specialists represented in: governmental officials, architects in practice and academics. The results reveal that this research has developed an understandable code, with categories relevant to the Egyptian environment, achievable credits and satisfactory overall classifications. The proposed code will insure a minimum level of applying green architecture principles in Egyptian buildings. It presents a unified, coherent and accurate method of assessment. It allows the designers and decision makers to identify the key points that need to be addressed to enhance the overall performance of a building and in turn make it beneficial to the environment. The application of the proposed code will result in green concepts being more in the centre of the architecture practice in Egypt and opening the possibilities to introducing new concepts and measures to achieve sustainability.
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Opitz, Michael W. (Michael Wayne). "Potential space-heating energy efficiency improvements in district-heated Russian apartments buildings." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1994. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/36935.
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Hung, Aaron. "ENERGY EFFICIENCY AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF BUILDINGS AT CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2015. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1446477944.
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El-khawas, Ihab N. "The optimal design of buildings : a life-cycle approach to energy efficiency /." The Ohio State University, 1997. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1487948158626783.
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Danielski, Itai. "Energy efficiency of new residential buildings in sweden : Design and Modelling Aspects." Licentiate thesis, Mittuniversitetet, Avdelningen för ekoteknik och hållbart byggande, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:miun:diva-21933.
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Energy security and climate change mitigation have been discussed in Sweden since the oil crisis in the 1970s. Sweden has since then increased its share of renewable energy resources to reach the highest level among the EU member states, but is still among the countries with the highest primary energy use per capita. Not least because of that, increasing energy efficiency is important and it is part of the Swedish long term environmental objectives. Large potential for improving energy efficiency can be found in the building sector, mainly in the existing building stock but also in newly constructed buildings In this thesis, criteria for energy efficiency in new residential buildings are studied, several design aspects of residential buildings are examined, and possible further analysis from an energy system perspective discussed. Three case studies of existing residential buildings were analysed, including one detached house and multi-storey apartment buildings. The analysis was based on both energy simulations and measurements in residential buildings. The results show that the calculated specific final energy demand of residential buildings, before they are built, is too rough an indicator to explicitly steer society toward lower final energy use in the building sector. One of the reasons is assumptions made during calculation before the buildings is built. Another reason is the interior building design. A design that includes relatively large areas of heated corridors, service and storage rooms will lower the specific final energy demand without improving the building energy efficiency, which might increase both the total final energy demand and the use of construction materials in the building sector. Efficient thermal envelopes are essential in construction of energy efficient buildings, which include the thermal resistance and also the shape of the building. The shape factor of buildings was found to be an important variable for heat demand in buildings located in temperate and colder climates, particularly if they are exposed to strong winds. From a system perspective, energy efficiency measures and the performance of the end use heating technology in buildings should be evaluated together with the energy supply system, including the dynamic interaction between them.
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Kariyeva, Jahan. "LIGHTING EFFICIENCY FEASIBILITY STUDY OF THREE OHIO UNIVERSITY BUILDINGS." Ohio University / OhioLINK, 2006. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ohiou1149438993.
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Kumirai, T. "A review of passive thermal comfort energy efficiency interventions in residential buildings of Bloemfontein." Interim : Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol 8, Issue 2: Central University of Technology Free State Bloemfontein, 2009. http://hdl.handle.net/11462/368.
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Published Article<br>The paper presents a critique of passive and active thermal comfort strategies. Extensive review of literature on passive thermal comfort energy efficiency interventions and their benefits was under taken. The paper explains the correlation between climatic comfort and energy efficiency. The applicability of the energy management process in ensuring energy efficiency is presented. Passive thermal comfort energy efficiency interventions have been seen to provide thermal comfort as well as energy efficiency. Their major shortcoming is their disability to work in all kinds of weather, heating in the winter and cooling in the summer. There is need to optimize passive thermal comfort energy efficiency interventions so that they provide heating in the winter and cooling in the summer.
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Hamad, Samar. "Influence of Energy Benchmarking Policies on the Energy Performance of Existing Buildings." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/5196.
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Energy benchmarking and disclosure policies exist in several local and state governments to manage the energy consumption of existing buildings and encourage energy efficient retrofits and upgrades, yet little is known about whether these efforts have improved overall energy efficiency. The purpose of this repeated-measures study was to examine the influence of New York City's (NYC's) Benchmarking Law (LL84) on the energy performance of the city's existing commercial buildings through investigating whether the energy performance of the city's existing commercial buildings significantly improved after the implementation of this policy. The study was based on Ostrom's institutional analysis and development framework. Paired-sample t tests were performed to statistically analyze the annually disclosed energy benchmarking data for 1,072 of NYC's existing commercial buildings that were benchmarked in both 2011 and 2016. Compared to 2011, the study results revealed statistically significant improvements in the energy performance of NYC's commercial buildings by 2016. On average, their site energy use intensity (EUI) significantly reduced by 5%, source EUI significantly decreased by 10%, greenhouse gas emissions significantly dropped by 12%, and ENERGY STAR performance rating significantly improved by 5%. However, these improvements were primarily achieved in 2012, 1 year after the city's energy benchmarking data were publicly disclosed. Additional measures should be considered to maintain continuous energy savings and greenhouse gas mitigation patterns. Positive social change implications include the potential to promote energy-efficient upgrades and inspire the adoption of sustainable building concepts.
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Bulut, Mehmet Börühan. "An analysis of the relationship between the energy and buildings sectors in Sweden." Licentiate thesis, Mälardalens högskola, Framtidens energi, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-28693.
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Climate change is one of the global challenges of our time. The energy sector is at the focus of the European efforts to combat climate change as it accounts for 80% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union. Buildings, on the other hand, represent 40% of the energy use and 33% of the total greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union, giving the buildings sector also a key role in the European climate strategy. There are, at the same time, strong interdependencies between the energy and buildings sectors due to the high amount of energy used by buildings and their rising importance as active components in the future energy systems. These interdependencies do not only influence the investment decisions in the energy and buildings sectors, but also the effectiveness of the European climate strategy. Cooperation between the energy and buildings sectors can create beneficial outcomes for the both sectors as well as the environment. It may also encourage innovation, improve the energy performance of buildings, and help achieve a higher penetration of renewable energy into the energy system. This licentiate thesis investigates the relationship between the energy and buildings sector at the inter-company level. Presenting the data collected from interviews and a web survey answered by the energy and buildings sectors in Sweden, this thesis examines the level of cooperation between these two sectors, discusses trust issues between stakeholders, presents the factors that negatively impact cooperation, and provides recommendations for the minimisation of these factors. The findings presented in this thesis indicate an insufficient level of cooperation between the energy and buildings sectors in Sweden, to which the following factors have been identified to contribute in a negative a way: district heating monopolies; energy efficiency in buildings; building regulations; self-generation of electricity; and energy use patterns. The emphasis on self-interest by stakeholders within the both sectors appears to create trust issues between stakeholders. Accordingly, shifting the focus from self-gains to mutual gains is deemed necessary to improve the cooperation between the energy and buildings sectors. This, however requires significant changes in current practices and business models. It has been identified that the development of smart energy systems that allow a closer interaction between the energy and buildings sectors through flexible energy supply and use would minimise many of the factors that negatively impact cooperation.<br>Klimatförändringen är en av de stora globala utmaningar vi står inför. I Europa läggs idag stort fokus på energisektorn, som står för 80 procent av det totala utsläppen av växthusgaser. Byggnader representerar 40 procent av energianvändningen och 33 procent av växthusutsläppen, vilket också ger byggsektorn en nyckelroll i den europeiska klimatstrategin. Samtidigt finns det starka beroendeförhållanden mellan energi- och byggsektorn på grund av den höga energianvändningen i byggnader och deras ökade betydelse som en aktiv komponent i det framtida energisystemet. Dessa beroendeförhållanden påverkar inte bara investeringsbeslut i de båda sektorerna, utan även effektiviteten i den europeiska klimatstrategin. Samarbete mellan energi- och byggsektorn kan få positiva effekter för både dem själva såväl som för miljön. Samarbete mellan sektorerna kan även uppmuntra innovation, förbättra energieffektiviteten i byggnader och tillåta en högre användning av förnyelsebar energi i energisystemet. Denna licentiatavhandling utforskar förhållandet mellan energi- och byggsektorn på företagsnivå genom att analysera data som samlats in med hjälp av intervjuer och en webbaserad enkät. Intervjuer och enkäter har besvarades av både energi- och byggsektorerna i Sverige. Denna avhandling studerar nivån av samarbete mellan de två sektorerna, diskuterar problem gällande förtroende mellan intressenter, presenterar de identifierade faktorer som försvårar samarbete och ger rekommendationer för att minimera dessa. Resultatet visar på en otillräcklig nivå av samarbete mellan energi- och byggsektorerna i Sverige. De faktorer som försvårar samarbetet är följande: fjärrvärmemonopol; energieffektivitet i byggnader; byggregler, egenproduktion av el och användarmönster. Naturligt finns ett egenintresse hos olika intressenter inom de båda sektorerna, och detta tycks ha skapat ett förtroendeproblem mellan de olika sektorerna Att byta fokus från egen vinning till gemensamma mål bedöms vara nödvändigt för att öka samarbetet mellan energi- och byggsektorerna. Detta fodrar dock stora förändringar både i nuvarande verksamhet samt i affärsmodellerna. Det har påvisats att utvecklandet av smarta energisystem som tillåter en större interaktion mellan energi- och byggsektorerna genom flexibel energiförsörjning och användning skulle minimera många av de faktorer som inverkar negativt på samarbetet.
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Khosrowpour, Ardalan. "Establishing the Need for Tailored Energy Feedback Programs in Buildings." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/82719.
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Buildings account for 40% of energy consumption in the US. Despite all improvements in buildings shell, equipment, and design, CO2 emissions from buildings are increasing as a result of increased energy consumption. Since occupants spend more than 90% of their time indoors, they are inseparable and significant elements of building system dynamics. Hence, there is a great potential for energy efficiency in buildings using a wide range of programs such as education, intervention, energy feedback, etc. Due to advancement of technology and accessibility of high resolution energy consumption data, utility companies are enabled to focus on implementing energy feedback programs to induce energy efficiency and reduce the peak energy load in the commercial and residential sector. In order to better understand various aspects of energy feedback programs, in the first chapter of this dissertation, I conduct a comprehensive literature review on the state-of-the-art energy feedback study methods and identify gaps of knowledge and challenges faced by researchers in the field. Accordingly, the future research vision is laid out at the intersection of methods and gaps of knowledge used in energy feedback studies and future research opportunities and questions are provided. One of the major gaps of knowledge I identified in the literature review is the lack of quantitative analyses used to investigate the variability of occupant responses to commercial buildings energy feedback programs to evaluate the need for targeted and tailored energy feedback programs. In the second chapter, I conducted a comprehensive analysis on occupant energy-use responses under the influence of a uniform energy feedback program. Furthermore, I investigated the effectiveness of notifications on increasing the level of engagement of the occupants in these studies. The results supported the existence of a variability in responses and engagement level in a uniform energy feedback program which may be due to intra-class variability of occupant behavior. In the third chapter, based on the established need for a targeted energy feedback program, I investigate the predictability of occupant energy consumption behavior and its correlation with energy consumption. The results report that 46% of occupants may be good candidates for targeted energy feedback programs due to their combination of higher levels of energy-use and predictability of their energy consumption behavior.<br>Ph. D.
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Tsave, A. "Energy performance regulations and methodologies of energy saving in office buildings in southern Europe." Thesis, Brunel University, 2009. http://bura.brunel.ac.uk/handle/2438/3281.
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The Directive 2002/91/EC of the European Parliament and Council on energy performance of buildings entered into force on 4th January 2003, setting the minimum requirements of energy performance. All Member States had to incorporate the requirements of the new directive in national legislation by January 2006 and build up relevant systems and measures to transpose and implement these requirements. The stage of Directive’s implementation in the countries of Southern Europe is reported because of the similar climatic conditions and the geographical location for a future enforcement in Greece, as the building code in Greece is still under development. As energy use in buildings accounts for about 40% of the final energy demand in the European Union, the application of building standards can achieve a reduction in electric energy consumption and therefore an increase in energy performance of buildings. A record of the electric energy consumption of office buildings in the four Prefectures of Crete is implemented aiming at a future energy saving, which may be obtained by either through increased efficiency or by reducing electric energy consumption.
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Aquino, Eddie Villanueva. "PREDICTING BUILDING ENERGY PERFORMANCE: LEVERAGING BIM CONTENT FOR ENERGY EFFICIENT BUILDINGS." DigitalCommons@CalPoly, 2013. https://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/theses/1077.
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Reducing and managing the environmental impacts of building structures has become a priority of building stakeholders and within the architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) community; although, conflicting approaches and methods to combat the issues are present. For example, green building standards are widespread throughout the world; however each one has its own characteristics and consequently its own specific requirements. While all have proven to be effective rating systems and have similar requirements, the distinguishing characteristic that separates them is their treatment of performance and prescriptive metrics. The feature they all severely lack or currently limit is the inclusion of strict engineering evaluation through energy simulations; hence, the reason why they fail to offer procedural steps to meet performance metrics. How can design professionals design energy efficient buildings with such constraints? Fortunately, advances in technology have allowed design professionals access to content found in Building Information Modeling (BIM). However, extracting pertinent information for specific use in energy analysis is problematic because BIM software currently available is filled with interoperability issues when placed in external software for energy analysis and energy analysis software itself is created with many assumptions that affect the tabulated energy results.
This research investigates current building rating systems, determines how current professionals meet energy requirements, and prove that it is possible to create an add-on feature to Autodesk Revit that will allow design professionals to extract the needed information to meet energy goals with actual prescribed methods of mechanical systems selection and evaluation.
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Zhao, Haixiang. "Artificial Intelligence Models for Large Scale Buildings Energy Consumption Analysis." Phd thesis, Ecole Centrale Paris, 2011. http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-00658767.
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The energy performance in buildings is influenced by many factors, such as ambient weather conditions, building structure and characteristics, occupancy and their behaviors, the operation of sub-level components like Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) system. This complex property makes the prediction, analysis, or fault detection/diagnosis of building energy consumption very difficult to accurately and quickly perform. This thesis mainly focuses on up-to-date artificial intelligence models with the applications to solve these problems. First, we review recently developed models for solving these problems, including detailed and simplified engineering methods, statistical methods and artificial intelligence methods. Then we simulate energy consumption profiles for single and multiple buildings, and based on these datasets, support vector machine models are trained and tested to do the prediction. The results from extensive experiments demonstrate high prediction accuracy and robustness of these models. Second, Recursive Deterministic Perceptron (RDP) neural network model is used to detect and diagnose faulty building energy consumption. The abnormal consumption is simulated by manually introducing performance degradation to electric devices. In the experiment, RDP model shows very high detection ability. A new approach is proposed to diagnose faults. It is based on the evaluation of RDP models, each of which is able to detect an equipment fault.Third, we investigate how the selection of subsets of features influences the model performance. The optimal features are selected based on the feasibility of obtaining them and on the scores they provide under the evaluation of two filter methods. Experimental results confirm the validity of the selected subset and show that the proposed feature selection method can guarantee the model accuracy and reduces the computational time.One challenge of predicting building energy consumption is to accelerate model training when the dataset is very large. This thesis proposes an efficient parallel implementation of support vector machines based on decomposition method for solving such problems. The parallelization is performed on the most time-consuming work of training, i.e., to update the gradient vector f. The inner problems are dealt by sequential minimal optimization solver. The underlying parallelism is conducted by the shared memory version of Map-Reduce paradigm, making the system particularly suitable to be applied to multi-core and multiprocessor systems. Experimental results show that our implementation offers a high speed increase compared to Libsvm, and it is superior to the state-of-the-art MPI implementation Pisvm in both speed and storage requirement.
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RIFAI, Nabil. "Monitoring the energy consumption in buildings in B2B sector." Thesis, KTH, Tillämpad termodynamik och kylteknik, 2016. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-183387.
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This report discusses the ambition of EDF, a French electricity provider, to offer new services to its customers. With the emergence of the smart grid that will be operational in 2020 in France, there are several opportunities that have to be taken. One of them is to be able to offer a suitable monitoring system to its customer. This study tried to emphasize the important aspects and features that are required in such a system. Several solutions that are currently being commercialized in France have been analyzed. A grading has been made according to the technical functionalities and the business models have been analyzed. Recommendations for EDF have also been made in order to help the company to choose the right monitoring system.
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Widström, Torun. "Enhanced Energy Efficiency and Preservation of Historic Buildings : Methods and Tools for Modeling." Licentiate thesis, KTH, Byggnadsteknik, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-102544.
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As the environmental impacts of the energy usage of the world today becomes more and more evident, enhancement of energy performance of the already existing building stock becomes more urgent. Buildings belonging to the cultural heritage are often the ones that are most difficult to deal with in this context. The subject of this thesis is the use of building simulation of historic buildings. The task here is to identify and when necessary develop simulation tools and methods that are suitable for planning of retrofitting strategies in historic buildings, and to identify and analyze what demands such tools and methods would have to fulfill, in what contexts different simulation strategies are suitable, how the demands on the tools might be met and what results and how the results would facilitate the decision making process in the most optimal way. A powerful means to acquire such analyses is the use of whole-building simulation. In the case of historical buildings there are several aspects to take into consideration, determining the choice of simulation tool and method. This thesis includes Investigation of the variability of the demands on simulation tools and methods that the historic buildings pose, and its implication on complexity of the simulation process, and suggestion of a complexity index tool. Investigation of the whole-building simulation process and how it complies with the demands identified, and how the exergy concept can be used, exemplified by a case study. Identification of a need for a tool and method for a large amount of cases not easily covered by abundantly available tools and methods Suggestion of a tool and method to address these cases, and presentation of a case study where the suggested tool and method have been applied, with good agreement between the simulated and measured values. One important feature of the suggested tool is the Very Small Wall-part Method, that includes the assessment of especially damage prone points into the whole-building simulation model, otherwise unable to accommodate these points. Another is the damage risk assessment feature where a mould risk prediction tool is presented.<br><p>QC20120920</p>
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McBee, Brian K. "Computational Approaches to Improving Room Heating and Cooling for Energy Efficiency in Buildings." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/28911.
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With a nation-wide aim toward reducing operational energy costs in buildings, it is important to understand the dynamics of controlled heating, cooling, and air circulation of an individual room, the "One-Room Model Problem." By understanding how one most efficiently regulates a room's climate, one can use this knowledge to help develop overall best-practice power reduction strategies. A key toward effectively analyzing the "One-Room Model Problem" is to understand the capabilities and limitations of existing commercial tools designed for similar problems. In this thesis we develop methodology to link commercial Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software COMSOL with standard computational mathematics software MATLAB, and design controllers that apply inlet airflow and heating or cooling to a room and investigate their effects. First, an appropriate continuum model, the Boussinesq System, is described within the framework of this problem. Next, abstract and weak formulations of the problem are described and tied to a Finite Element Method (FEM) approximation as implemented in the interface between COMSOL and MATLAB. A methodology is developed to design Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controllers and associated functional gains in MATLAB which can be implemented in COMSOL. These "closed-loop" methods are then tested numerically in COMSOL and compared against "open-loop" and average state closed-loop controllers.<br>Ph. D.
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Siemon, Catherine Whitney. "A comparison of the energy efficiency of LEED to non-LEED buildings and to their energy models." [Gainesville, Fla.] : University of Florida, 2009. http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/UFE0041270.
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Shafqat, Omar. "Decreasing Energy Use by 50% in Swedish Multifamily buildings by 2050 - Obstacles and Opportunities." Thesis, KTH, Tillämpad termodynamik och kylteknik, 2012. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-102294.
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Building sector in Sweden constitutes a major part of the overall energy consumption, making up for around 40% of the total energy use. During the 60s and 70s, there was a big surge in housing in Sweden with over a million dwellings, both single family houses and multi-family apartments, constructed over a period of ten years. These buildings constructed according to the pre-oil crisis standards, suffer from poor energy performance and are in dire need for large scale renovations. This makes it a very interesting area to focus on to meet the Swedish government targets of 50% energy reduction by 2050. This study tries to assess the prevailing situation in multifamily housing sector and focuses on various obstacles and hinders in the path towards achieving long term energy saving goals. A model has been developed using bottom-up approach to study different scenarios for energy use in 2050 based on various renovation possibilities in the building stock.
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Hossain, Mohammad Akram. "Development of Building Markers and Unsupervised Non-intrusive Disaggregation Model for Commercial Buildings’ Energy Usage." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1517225790921761.
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Gulbinas, Rimas Viktoras. "Motivating and Quantifying Energy Efficient Behavior among Commercial Building Occupants." Diss., Virginia Tech, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/64867.
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The environmental and economic consequences of climate change are severe and are being exacerbated by increased global carbon emissions. In the United States, buildings account for over 40% of all domestic and 7.4% of all global CO2 emissions and therefore represent an important target for energy conservation initiatives. Even marginal energy savings across all buildings could have a profound effect on carbon emission mitigation. In order to realize the full potential of energy savings in the building sector, it is essential to maximize the energy efficiency of both buildings and the behavior of occupants who occupy them. In this vein, systems that collect and communicate building energy-use information to occupants (i.e. eco-feedback systems) have been demonstrated to motivate building occupants to significantly reduce overall building energy consumption. Furthermore, advancements in building sensor technologies and data processing capabilities have enabled the development of advanced eco-feedback systems that also allow building occupants to share energy-use data with one another and to collectively act to reduce energy consumption. In addition to monitoring building occupant energy-use, these systems are capable of collecting data about specific conservation actions taken by occupants and their interactions with different features of the eco-feedback system. However, despite recent advancements in eco-feedback and building sensor technologies, very few systems have been specifically designed to enable research on the effectiveness of different behavior-based energy conservation strategies in commercial buildings. Consequently, very little research has been conducted on how access to such systems impacts the energy-use behavior of building occupants. In this dissertation, I describe how my research over the past three years has advanced an understanding of how eco-feedback systems can impact the energy-use behavior of commercial building occupants. First, I present a novel eco-feedback system that I developed to connect building occupants over energy-use data and empower them to conserve energy while also collecting data that enables controlled studies to quantify the impacts of a wide variety of energy conservation strategies. Next, I present a commercial building study in which this eco-feedback system was used to investigate the effects of organizational network dynamics on the energy-use of individuals. I then introduce a new set of metrics based on individual energy-use data that enables the classification of individuals and building occupant networks based on their energy-use efficiency and predictability. I describe the principles behind the construction of these metrics and demonstrate how these quantitative measures can be used to increase the efficacy of behavior-based conservation campaigns by enabling targeted interventions. I conclude the dissertation with a discussion about the limitations of my research and the new research avenues that it has enabled.<br>Ph. D.