30 research outputs found

    The Application of LiDAR Data for the Solar Potential Analysis Based on Urban 3D Model

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    Solar maps are becoming a popular resource and are available via the web to help plan investments for the benefits of renewable energy. These maps are especially useful when the results have high accuracy. LiDAR technology currently offers high-resolution data sources that are very suitable for obtaining an urban 3D geometry with high precision. Three-dimensional visualization also offers a more accurate and intuitive perspective of reality than 2D maps. This paper presents a new method for the calculation and visualization of the solar potential of building roofs on an urban 3D model, based on LiDAR data. The paper describes the proposed methodology to (1) calculate the solar potential, (2) generate an urban 3D model, (3) semantize the urban 3D model with different existing and calculated data, and (4) visualize the urban 3D model in a 3D web environment. The urban 3D model is based on the CityGML standard, which offers the ability to consistently combine geometry and semantics and enable the integration of different levels (building and city) in a continuous model. The paper presents the workflow and results of application to the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz in Spain. This paper also shows the potential use of LiDAR data in different domains that can be connected using different technologies and different scales.The European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No 691883, SMARTENCITY supported and funded this study

    Method for estimating solar energy potential based on photogrammetry from unmanned aerial vehicles

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    This study presents a method to estimate the solar energy potential based on 3D data taken from unmanned aerial devices. The solar energy potential on the roof of a building was estimated before the placement of solar panels using photogrammetric data analyzed in a geographic information system, and the predictions were compared with the data recorded after installation. The areas of the roofs were chosen using digital surface models and the hemispherical viewshed algorithm, considering how the solar radiation on the roof surface would be affected by the orientation of the surface with respect to the sun, the shade of trees, surrounding objects, topography, and the atmospheric conditions. The results show that the efficiency percentages of the panels and the data modeled by the proposed method from surface models are very similar to the theoretical efficiency of the panels. Radiation potential can be estimated from photogrammetric data and a 3D model in great detail and at low cost. This method allows the estimation of solar potential as well as the optimization of the location and orientation of solar panels

    Positive Energy District: A Model for Historic Districts to Address Energy Poverty

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    ENGAGER 2017–2021, CA16232 PED-EU-NET, CA19126The Positive Energy District (PED) concept has been pointed out as key for cities' energy system transformation toward carbon neutrality. The PED may be defined as an energy-efficient and flexible urban area with net-zero energy import and greenhouse gas emissions, aiming toward annual local surplus of renewable energy. Most of the studies and practical experiences about PEDs are based on newly built districts, where the planning and integration of innovative solutions are less complex and more cost-effective. However, to achieve Europe Union's 2050 carbon-neutral ambition, we argue that the transformation of the settled districts is essential, including historic districts, which present common challenges across European cities, such as degraded dwellings, low-income families, and gentrification processes due to massive tourism flows. This paper aims to discuss how the PED model can be an opportunity for historic districts to reduce their emissions and mitigate energy poverty. The historic district of Alfama, in the city of Lisbon (Portugal), is used as a case study to show the potential of energy renovation measures and solar PV production in households, cornerstones of a PED. The annual energy needs potential reduction due to building retrofit is 84 and 19% for space heating and cooling, respectively, while the integration of building-integrated PV technologies in rooftops and windows potentially generates up to 60 GWh/year. At the district scale, these two components of the PED concept could require an investment of 60M€ to 81M€ depending on the PV technologies in the rooftops, a sensitive aspect in historical districts. Unlike other mechanisms to tackle energy poverty, like the social tariffs, the adoption of structural measures like building energy efficiency retrofit and renewable energy integration will contribute to solve the energy poverty problem, which is significant in Alfama, in both the winter and summer. The highlighted investments require an innovative financial scheme to support not only buildings' owners but also tenants, as these are among the most vulnerable to energy poverty. However, the social benefits of that investment, on the health system, air quality, climate resilience, labor productivity, and social integration, would be invaluable.publishersversionpublishe

    Engineering Design and Optimization of Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic and Wind Turbine Installation in an Urban Environment

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    Wind turbine and photovoltaic (PV) technologies will play a significant role in the world energy future. However, a lack of awareness of the potential of renewables is a significant challenge in sustainable energy development. The potential of solar and wind energy sources in producing electricity to meet the electrical demands of the University of Lethbridge was evaluated. Furthermore, expanding the research to a large area, a multi-criteria approach based on geographic information systems (GIS) and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) was developed to estimate rooftop photovoltaic potential of buildings in an urban environment, the City of Lethbridge. The unreliability of renewable resources is an impediment to developing renewable projects. An optimal sizing strategy was developed using a particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique to determine the optimum configuration of photovoltaic panels, wind turbines and battery units minimizing the annual system cost while maximizing the reliability of the hybrid system.The University of Lethbridge, The Mitacs Program (Canada), in cooperation with NOVUS Environmental, Guelph, Ontari

    Remote Sensing in Applications of Geoinformation

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    Remote sensing, especially from satellites, is a source of invaluable data which can be used to generate synoptic information for virtually all parts of the Earth, including the atmosphere, land, and ocean. In the last few decades, such data have evolved as a basis for accurate information about the Earth, leading to a wealth of geoscientific analysis focusing on diverse applications. Geoinformation systems based on remote sensing are increasingly becoming an integral part of the current information and communication society. The integration of remote sensing and geoinformation essentially involves combining data provided from both, in a consistent and sensible manner. This process has been accelerated by technologically advanced tools and methods for remote sensing data access and integration, paving the way for scientific advances in a broadening range of remote sensing exploitations in applications of geoinformation. This volume hosts original research focusing on the exploitation of remote sensing in applications of geoinformation. The emphasis is on a wide range of applications, such as the mapping of soil nutrients, detection of plastic litter in oceans, urban microclimate, seafloor morphology, urban forest ecosystems, real estate appraisal, inundation mapping, and solar potential analysis

    Radiation techniques for urban thermal simulation with the Finite Element Method

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    Modern societies are increasingly organized in cities. In the present times, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban settlements. In this context, architectural and building scale works have the need of extending their scope to the urban environment. One of the main challenges of these times is understanting all the thermal exchanges that happen in the city. The radiative part appears as the less developed one; its characterization and interaction with built structures has gained attention for building physics, architecture and environmental engineering. Providing a linkage between these areas, the emerging field of urban physics has become important for tackling studies of such nature. Urban thermal studies are intrinsically linked to multidisciplinary work approaches. Performing full-scale measurements is hard, and prototype models are difficult to develop. Therefore, computational simulations are essential in order to understand how the city behaves and to evaluate projected modifications. The methodological and algorithmic improvement of simulation is one of the mainlines of work for computational physics and many areas of computer science. The field of computer graphics has addressed the adaptation of rendering algorithms to daylighting using physically-based radiation models on architectural scenes. The Finite Element Method (FEM) has been widely used for thermal analysis. The maturity achieved by FEM software allows for treating very large models with a high geometrical detail and complexity. However, computing radiation exchanges in this context implies a hard computational challenge, and forces to push the limits of existing physical models. Computer graphics techniques can be adapted to FEM to estimate solar loads. In the thermal radiation range, the memory requirements for storing the interaction between the elements grows because all the urban surfaces become radiation sources. In this thesis, a FEM-based methodology for urban thermal analysis is presented. A set of radiation techniques (both for solar and thermal radiation) are developed and integrated into the FEM software Cast3m. Radiosity and ray tracing are used as the main algorithms for radiation computations. Several studies are performed for different city scenes. The FEM simulation results are com-pared with measured temperature results obtained by means of urban thermography. Post-processing techniques are used to obtain rendered thermograms, showing that the proposed methodology pro-duces accurate results for the cases analyzed. Moreover, its good computational performance allows for performing this kind of study using regular desktop PCs.Las sociedades modernas están cada vez más organizadas en ciudades. Más de la mitad de la población mundial vive en asentamientos urbanos en la actualidad. En este contexto, los trabajos a escala arquitectónica y de edificio deben extender su alcance al ambiente urbano. Uno de los mayores desafíos de estos tiempos consiste en entender todos los intercambios térmicos que suceden en la ciudad. La parte radiativa es la menos desarrollada; su caracterización y su interacción con edificaciones ha ganado la atención de la física de edificios, la arquitectura y la ingeniería ambiental. Como herramienta de conexión entre estas áreas, la física urbana es un área que resulta importante para atacar estudios de tal naturaleza. Los estudios térmicos urbanos están intrinsecamente asociados a trabajos multidisciplinarios. Llevar a cabo mediciones a escala real resulta difícil, y el desarrollo de prototipos de menor escala es complejo. Por lo tanto, la simulación computacional es esencial para entender el comportamiento de la ciudad y para evaluar modificaciones proyectadas. La mejora metodológica y algorítmica de las simulaciones es una de las mayores líneas de trabajo para la física computacional y muchas áreas de las ciencias de la computación. El área de la computación gráfica ha abordado la adaptación de algoritmos de rendering para cómputo de iluminación natural, utilizando modelos de radiación basados en la física y aplicándolos sobre escenas arquitectónicas. El Método de Elementos Finitos (MEF) ha sido ampliamente utilizado para análisis térmico. La madurez alcanzada por soluciones de software MEF permite tratar grandes modelos con un alto nivel de detalle y complejidad geométrica. Sin embargo, el cómputo del intercambio radiativo en este contexto implica un desafío computacional, y obliga a empujar los límites de las descripciones físicas conocidas. Algunas técnicas de computación gráfica pueden ser adaptadas a MEF para estimar las cargas solares. En el espectro de radiación térmica, los requisitos de memoria necesarios para almacenar la interacción entre los elementos crecen debido a que todas las superficies urbanas se transforman en fuentes emisoras de radiación. En esta tesis se presenta una metodología basada en MEF para el análisis térmico de escenas urbanas. Un conjunto de técnicas de radiación (para radiación solar y térmica) son desarrolladas e integradas en el software MEF Cast3m. Los algoritmos de radiosidad y ray tracing son utilizados para el cómputo radiativo. Se presentan varios estudios que utilizan diferentes modelos de ciudades. Los resultados obtenidos mediante MEF son comparados con temperaturas medidas por medio de termografías urbanas. Se utilizan técnicas de post-procesamiento para renderizar imágenes térmicas, que permiten concluir que la metodología propuesta produce resultados precisos para los casos analizados. Asimismo, su buen desempeño computacional posibilita realizar este tipo de estudios en computadoras personales

    Proceedings of the 2018 Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) International Congress

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    Published proceedings of the 2018 Canadian Society for Mechanical Engineering (CSME) International Congress, hosted by York University, 27-30 May 2018

    Urban Forests and Landscape Ecology

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    Urbanization is a dominant driver of landscape transformation across the world, with cities representing centers of economic and socio-cultural development. Today, more than 4.2 billion people live in urban areas, which represent ~3% of the Earth’s land area. By 2050, it is predicted this number will increase to 6.6 billion people (~70% of the predicted global population). As the human population grows, cities around the globe will continue to expand, increasing the demand for food and services. Within cities, urban forests provide multiple nature-based solutions, as well as other environmental services and socio-economic benefits, such as heat mitigation and social integration. Urban forests are also important for coping with psychological stress during events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, urban forests are a priority for basic and applied forest research because they are intimately connected with people’s physical, cultural, and economic well-being in the urban environment, and can also be important reservoirs of biodiversity. To promote a better understanding of urban forests and landscape ecology, this book in “Urban Forests and Landscape Ecology” compiled research set in urban forests and focused on some spatially explicit processes. Studies presented in this book are highly interdisciplinary and use a wide range of research approaches. This book present nine scientific publications from global urban forests demonstrating that these forests, as a nature-based solution, provide multiple environmental services and are crucial to improve urban livability and thereby the wellbeing of city dwellers

    Indoor air Quality and Its Effects on Health in Urban Houses of Indonesia: A case study of Surabaya

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    There is a possibility that the sick building syndrome has already spread widely among the newly constructed apartments in major cities of Indonesia. This study investigates the current conditions of indoor air quality, focusing especially on formaldehyde and TVOC, and their effects on health among occupants in the urban houses located in the city of Surabaya. A total of 471 respondents were interviewed and 82 rooms were measured from September 2017 to January 2018. The results indicated that around 50% of the respondents in the apartments showed some degrees of chemical sensitivity risk. More than 60% of the measured formaldehyde levels in the apartments exceeded the WHO standard, 0.08 ppm. The respondents living in rooms with higher mean formaldehyde values tended to have higher multiple chemical sensitivity risk scores. KEYWORDS: Indoor air quality, Sick building syndrome, QEESI, Formaldehyde, Developing countrie

    Geodetic infrastructure of Serbia

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    Geodetic reference systems and their realization at the territory of Serbia have been created and maintained since the end of 19th century. Until mid-80s a series of reference geodetic networks were established: trigonometric networks in four orders, two levelling networks of high accuracybut also a series of gravimetric networks. In the following period of 20 years, there were not any organized worksaiming to maintenance of existing networks and creating new ones. In 1996, works started again on developing a new geodetic infrastructure in the form of realizing: a passive geodetic network, a network of permanent stations (AGROS – the active geodetic reference network of Serbia) as well as basic gravimetric networks. In this paperwork, a short review of works aiming to establish and use said networks is given but also a series of suggestions for a future development of geodetic infrastructure of Serbia
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