• Energy Research
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• 11. Sustainability close
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Sustainability assessment and rating systems are intended to foster more sustainable design, construction, operation, maintenance and disassembly/deconstruction promoting and making possible a better integration of environment, societal, and cost concerns with other traditional decision criteria. The use of improved and building technologies can contribute considerably to better environmental cycle and then to the sustainability of the constructions. It is widely recognised in the of Building Sustainability Assessment that Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a much preferable method for evaluating the environmental pressure caused by materials, Building assemblies and the whole life-cycle of a building. Nevertheless, LCA tools are not extensively used in building design and most of building sustainability assessment and systems are not comprehensive or consistently LCA-based. Reasons for this failure above all related to the huge variety and amount of material flows and processes of building’s Lifecycle and to the complexity of the stages of a LCA. This paper will present the difficulties and possible solutions to integrate more accurate environmental methods in rating systems. In this context, the paper will also present the work that is being carried out in the development of the Portuguese Building Sustainability Assessment system (SBTool PT)

The energy efficiency of buildings is nowadays one of the main concerns of the construction market. But, Indoor Environmental Quality of Buildings (IEQ) should not be disregarded. To achieve an adequate quality of buildings it is necessary to consider a set of aspects that are interconnected and influence each other, not always in a favourable way. The selection of the most suitable construction solution and materials for the building elements must consider its contribution for the IEQ (thermal and acoustic comfort, daylight conditions and the indoor air quality) inside the buildings, its energy efficiency and its environmental impact (considering the embodied energy, for example), but also the weight of the solution and its effect on the structural project of the building. The solutions adopted in buildings, usually, only optimize no more than one of the necessary comfort requirements. In many cases, the best solutions to accomplish different comfort requirements are not compatible, especially in what concerns natural ventilation and lighting strategies and the acoustic and thermal performance. So, it is necessary to have an integrated approach to ensure the best overall behaviour taking into account all of the, sometimes incompatible, comfort and energy efficiency requirements. In this work the use of a multi-criteria analysis, to balance all these aspects on the design phase, in order to assist the designer in the selection of construction solutions and materials will be presented. The selection of the most adequate construction solutions will increase the buildings IEQ, energy performance and also its environmental impact.

This research work aims to study if it is possible to design a sustainable building residential building that has a life-cycle cost lower than a conventional one. For this purpose, a multifamily cooperative housing building block, that is the Portuguese pilot-project of the EU Project “SHE: Sustainable Housing in Europe”, has been chosen. This work will compare the sustainability of the case study with the conventional design approach in Portugal, i.e. when the conventional technologies and building materials are used. For this outcome, the SBToolPT-H (Portuguese building sustainability assessment and rating methodology) will be used. This paper will highlight the usefulness of a building sustainability assessment tool in supporting and recognising the sustainable building design. It will also show that even with little investment in the capital costs it is possible to achieve high performance residential buildings.

Abstract This paper aims to compare the energy efficiency and CO 2 emissions of four different range extender engine solutions deployed in the same baseline series hybrid vehicle, under a combination of driving scenarios aiming to be representative of typical driving instead of standard cycles. Baseline vehicle is roughly based on Chevy VOLT/Opel Ampera. The baseline internal combustion engine is replaced by an over-expanded cycle engine, Wankel engine and microturbine, with respective generator and exhaust after treatment. Weight savings are compensated by introducing additional battery modules, maintaining the original baseline vehicle curb weight. Vehicle Specific Power (VSP) is used for driving cycle analysis and as explanatory variable for energy consumption and CO 2 emissions variations. Upstream fuel energy and CO 2 emissions of gasoline/diesel and electricity are regarded. Average VSP correlates with variation of the percentage of engine off, potential regenerative braking energy and eco/boost operation. Positive wheel energy correlates with energy consumption and electric autonomy adequately. The vehicle with the lightest engine (Wankel) and largest battery shows to be the most efficient in urban driving (when the engine does not have to work), while the vehicle with the highest efficient engine (over-expanded) and with dual eco/boost setting is the most efficient during the charge sustaining operation and in annual combined use.

FCT (Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia – Portugal) and COMPETE (Programa Operacional de Fatores de Competitividade - Portugal)

Currently there is a growing concern about climate change resulting from increased CO2 emissions, leading to an increasing demand of buildings that are more sustainable and energy efficient. The AEC industry have been acquiring more demanding standards of sustainability and energy efficiency, requiring analysis processes to be more complex and integrated with each other. Therefore, it has become vital to implement BIM, enabling greater efficiency in the collaborative process between actors. Thus, the use of BIM can contribute to sustainability through forecasting energy consumption and their usage costs with credibility, reliability and consistency of results. The study of the benefits and barriers to the introduction of BIM in energy analysis of buildings and the analysis of the interoperability between BIM tools and specialized software for energy analysis becomes relevant, as well as the study of workflows that provide good efficiency, which will boost its correct implementation in the AEC industry Currently there is a growing concern about climate change resulting from increased CO2 emissions, leading to an increasing demand of buildings that are more sustainable and energy efficient. The AEC industry have been acquiring more demanding standards of sustainability and energy efficiency, requiring analysis processes to be more complex and integrated with each other. Therefore, it has become vital to implement BIM, enabling greater efficiency in the collaborative process between actors. Thus, the use of BIM can contribute to sustainability through forecasting energy consumption and their usage costs with credibility, reliability and consistency of results. The study of the benefits and barriers to the introduction of BIM in energy analysis of buildings and the analysis of the interoperability between BIM tools and specialized software for energy analysis becomes relevant, as well as the study of workflows that provide good efficiency, which will boost its correct implementation in the AEC industry

Intensification, concentration and specialization of dairy cow farms originate many activity by-products, such as wastewater and slurry which implies treatment costs, reduce environmental quality and promote social conflicts between the urban and rural population. These (by)products present a high potential for energy recovery from biogas produced in anaerobic digestion processes, thus contributing to sustainable development. This study is focused on the development of a GIS-based spatial support decision system that supports Multicriteria Analysis and Weighted Hierarchical Analysis (AHP) models aiming to identify site locations with appropriate conditions for the implementation of biogas production units, using waste and wastewater produced by the dairy cow farms in Barcelos municipality (NW Portugal). This spatially explicit model considers environmental, social and economic factors, as well as, legal location constraints tested with a consistent sensitivity analysis of the modelling processes and results. The results indicate sites with appropriate conditions for the location of biogas production units, considering the minimal distance to the dairy cow farms, electric and road networks, in higher areas with forest land cover and maximizing the distance from the urban spaces, as well as, from the river/ground water surfaces and agricultural/ecological reserves. In the next studies it´s relevant to explore biogas units dimensioning concerns, explore other complementary biomass sources in anaerobic (co)digestion solutions and expand collected spatial data to spatial decision support system during future biogas units operation phase.

Abstract The reduction of the energy consumption and carbon emissions in the building sector is an important target for actions to mitigate the climate changes and different actions are being carried out to promote a transition to a low carbon built environment. However, present standards are mainly focused on new buildings which may result counter-productive in existing ones, due to their technical, functional and economic constraints. One of the most common problems in the current way of assessing building renovation scenarios is that only energy savings and cost are considered, disregarding additional benefits. Many studies, based on real cases, have already highlighted the relevance of these so-called co-benefits, which can be felt at the building level (and therefore they should be considered in the definition of the renovation measures) and also at the level of society. The present investigation has been developed under the scope of IEA EBC Annex 56 project, and a method to integrate co-benefits in the evaluation of the renovation scenarios towards both the nearly-zero emissions and the nearly-zero energy objectives is proposed. It has been applied to case-studies from several European countries and based on subsequent findings recommendations for policy makers and professional owners are presented.