• Energy Research

Abstract The school building sector has a pivotal role to play in the transition to a low carbon UK economy. School buildings are responsible for 15% of the country’s public sector carbon emissions, with space heating currently making up the largest proportion of energy use and associated costs in schools. Children spend a large part of their waking life in school buildings. There is substantial evidence that poor indoor air quality and thermal discomfort can have detrimental impacts on the performance, wellbeing and health of schoolchildren and school staff. Maintaining high indoor environmental quality whilst reducing energy demand and carbon emissions in schools is challenging due to the unique operational characteristics of school environments, e.g. high and intermittent occupancy densities or changes in occupancy patterns throughout the year. Furthermore, existing data show that 81% of the school building stock in England was constructed before 1976. Challenges facing the ageing school building stock may be exacerbated in the context of ongoing and future climate change. In recent decades, building stock modelling has been widely used to quantify and evaluate the current and future energy and indoor environmental quality performance of large numbers of buildings at the neighbourhood, city, regional or national level. Building stock models commonly use building archetypes, which aim to represent the diversity of building stocks through frequently occurring building typologies. The aim of this paper is to introduce the Data dRiven Engine for Archetype Models of Schools (DREAMS), a novel, data-driven, archetype-based school building stock modelling framework. DREAMS enables the detailed representation of the school building stock in England through the statistical analysis of two large scale and highly detailed databases provided by the UK Government: (i) the Property Data Survey Programme (PDSP) from the Department for Education (DfE), and (ii) Display Energy Certificates (DEC). In this paper, the development of 168 building archetypes representing 9,551 primary schools in England is presented. The energy consumption of the English primary school building stock was modelled for a typical year under the current climate using the widely tested and applied building performance software EnergyPlus. For the purposes of modelling validation, the DREAMS space heating demand predictions were compared against average measured energy consumption of the schools that were represented by each archetype. It was demonstrated that the simulated fossil-thermal energy consumption of a typical primary school in England was only 7% higher than measured energy consumption (139 kWh/m2/y simulated, compared to 130 kWh/m2/y measured). The building stock model performs better at predicting the energy performance of naturally ventilated buildings, which constitute 97% of the stock, than that of mechanically ventilated ones. The framework has also shown capabilities in predicting energy consumption on a more localised scale. The London primary school building stock was examined as a case study. School building stock modelling frameworks such as DREAMS can be powerful tools that aid decision-makers to quantify and evaluate the impact of a wide range of building stock-level policies, energy efficiency interventions and climate change scenarios on school energy and indoor environmental performance.

This paper described the development of regression models which are able to predict office building annual heating, cooling and auxiliary energy requirements for different HVAC systems as a function of office building heating and cooling demands. In order to represent the office building stock, a large number of building parameters were explored such as built forms, fabrics, glazing levels and orientation. Selected parameters were combined into a large set of office building models (3840 in total). As different HVAC systems have different energy requirements when responding to same building demands, each of the 3840 models were further coupled with five HVAC systems: VAV, CAV, fan-coil system with dedicated air (FC), and two chilled ceiling systems with dedicated air, radiator heating and either embedded pipes (EMB) or exposed aluminium panels (ALU). In total 23,040 possible scenarios were created and simulated using EnergyPlus software. The annual heating and cooling demands and their HVAC system's heating, cooling and auxiliary energy requirements were normalised per floor area and fitted to two groups of statistical models. Outputs from the regression analysis were evaluated by inspecting models best fit parameter values and goodness of fit. Based on the described analysis, the specific regression models were recommended.

This work presents a first-of-its-kind review specifically on photovoltaic thermal district heating (PVT DH), compiling a wide range of sources information to view and analyse its current status. From this, interesting conclusions have been extrapolated that would otherwise be unreachable without this holistic view. Potential opportunities have also been identified in the use of PVT panels in conjunction with other heating technologies, such as heat pumps, for its application in DH. Sources used included academic literature, government reviews, environmental agencies, manufacturers, energy and finance news, industrial and a German installation report. The review starts with a discussion on the need for decarbonising heating in urban areas and introduces how PVT DH could be a potential solution. This is followed by a discussion on PVT technology in terms of efficiency, status and market. Due to the diurnal/seasonal nature of PVT, an overview of potential storage technologies was then provided. The review identified that it is evident there are various ‘off the shelf’ storage technologies ready to be implemented in PVT DH systems. Following this, a discussion on PVT DH installations and studies investigates the advantages and disadvantages of this system. It is concluded that there is a need for future research to focus on the control strategies for PVT DH, taking into account the requirement to keep the PVT temperature low to optimise the electrical efficiency, and the integration of thermal storage and/or heat pumps. Finally, the review summarises how this investigation has led to the discovery of several external drivers which could put PVT DH ahead as a potential option when choosing clean heating strategies in the future. These include; progression towards 4th generation district heating, solar technology and storage technological advancement and cost reduction, mutual system performance improvement with heat pumps, and green legislation/policies. If knowledge and working experience of PVT DH systems can be ...

School building stock retrofit forms a key part of UK's commitment to net-zero carbon target by 2050. However, with a changing climate, the retrofit of school buildings may have unintended consequences on indoor thermal environments and cognitive performance of children in non-heating seasons. This paper aims to quantify the impact of school stock retrofit in accordance with increasingly tightening energy efficiency regulatory requirements on cognitive performance of English children, while also exploring the potential adaptation measures under climate change. The results indicate that English schools that undergo envelope upgrades exhibit higher Cognitive Performance Loss (CPL) of children compared to their pre-upgrade conditions. Passive climate adaptation measures, especially increased daytime ventilation rate was found to be an effective strategy for mitigating the impact of climate change on cognitive performance. However, the benefits of passive measures will diminish as the climate warms, while air conditioning will be required to maintain cognitive performance loss at relatively low levels. In addition to the reduction of heating load, envelope upgrade can provide benefits for English schools in cooler climatic regions from both cognitive performance and energy point of view. The study calls for the CPL to be added as one of the key performance indicators when considering the long-term impact of climate change on schools. This would enable policy makers and relevant stakeholders to make more holistic decisions regarding school stock retrofit while ensuring that classrooms are conducive to learning.

Urban building energy models (UBEM) are driving sustainable design and operations of cities by combining urban datasets with energy simulations. UBEMs are developed from a range of inputs on the sp...

Urban Building Energy Models (UBEMs) are increasingly important tools for national and local authorities seeking to understand and manage their carbon emissions. As such tools move from the preserve of research into the more general application, interest in learning about their application is increasing. The quantity of data inherent in a UBEM and its complexity, means that educating students in the underpinning principles and their application requires teaching a wide body of knowledge. This presents significant challenges for educators required to fit within predefined limits for teaching courses. The authors have now taught urban-scale building energy modelling to 3 cohorts of students in India, Peru and the UK using two different approaches. This paper summarises the contents of the courses and the approach taken to delivering the required learning in the limited time available. It details student feedback, outcomes and lessons learned for the different approaches and the challenges which remain. Highlights • The first publication on efforts to deliver education on urban building energy modelling • Results of teaching initiatives on three continents are presented • Three key challenges for UBEM education are identified • The importance of using real examples with personal relevance for students is highlighted