A cross-scale ‘material-component-system’ framework for transition towards zero-carbon buildings and districts with low, medium and high-temperature phase change materials

Transition towards a carbon-neutral district energy community calls for carbon elimination and offsetting strategies, and phase change materials (PCMs) with substantial potential latent energy density can contribute significantly to carbon neutrality through both carbon-positive (like PCM-based thermal control in solar PVs) and carbon-negative strategies (like waste-to-energy recovery). However, roadmap for PCMs’ application in carbon-neutral transition is ambiguous in the current academia, and a state-of-the-art overview on latent thermal storage is necessary. In this study, a comprehensive review was conducted on cutting-edge technologies for carbon-neutral transition with latent thermal storages. Both carbon-positive and carbon-negative strategies in the operational stage are reviewed. Carbon-positive solution mainly focuses on energy-efficient buildings, through a series of passive, active, and smart control strategies with artificial intelligence. Passive strategies, to enhance thermal inertia and thermal storage of building envelopes, mainly include free cooling, solar chimney, solar façade, and Trombe walls. Active strategies mainly include mechanical ventilations, active water pipe-embedded radiative cooling, and geothermal system integration. The ultimate target is to minimise building energy demands, with improved utilisation efficiency on natural heating (e.g., concentrated solar thermal energy, geothermal heating, and solar-driven ventilative heating) and cooling resources (e.g., ventilative cooling, geothermal cooling, and sky radiative cooling). As one of the most critical solutions to offset the released carbon emission, carbon-negative strategies with PCMs mainly include cleaner power production and waste heat recovery. Main functions of PCMs include energy efficiency enhancement on cleaner power production, steady steam production, steady heat flux via the latent storage capacity, and pre-heat purpose on waste heat recovery. A thermal energy interaction network with transportation is formulated with PCMs’ recovering heat from internal combustion engines and spatiotemporal energy sharing, to provide frontier research guidelines. Future studies are recommended to spotlight standard testing procedure and database, benchmarks for suitable PCMs selection, seasonal cascaded energy storage, nanofluid-based heat transfer enhancement in PCMs, anti-corrosion, compatibility, thermochemical stability, and economic feasibility of PCMs. This study provides a clear roadmap on developing PCMs for transition towards a carbon-neutral district energy community, together with applications, prospects, and challenges, paving the path for combined efforts from chemical materials synthesis and applications.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Design & Construction Managemen

Application of abandoned wells integrated with renewables

The large thermal potentials with geothermal gradient of abandoned wells provide the possibility and opportunity for carbon-neutrality transition of district heating systems, whereas energy harvesting from abandoned geothermal wells is full of challenges, due to the considerable initial investment in economic cost, system performance degradation, and so on. In this chapter, a systematic and comprehensive review on the application techniques of abandoned wells is presented, in terms of advanced thermal/power conversions, renewable integrations for district heating, and strategies for performance enhancement. Discussions on real applications have been conducted and future prospects presented, from perspectives of lifetime system performance, techno-economic feasibility analysis, and potential assessment of abandoned wells for carbon-neutrality transition. The results of this chapter can provide preliminary knowledge and cutting-edge technologies on renewable integrations with abandoned wells, so as to demonstrate techno-economic-environmental potentials of abandoned wells and contributions toward carbon-neutrality transition.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Design & Construction Managemen

The main utilization forms and current developmental status of geothermal energy for building cooling/heating in developing countries

Geothermal energy (GE), as an ideal renewable resource for building cooling/heating with stability and abundance in energy supply, has been widely exploited in developing countries. The common utilization forms of GE mainly include the ground source heat pump (GSHP), underground duct system (UDS), and abandoned wells energy (AWE) system. However, there is still a lack of comprehensive overview of the current developmental status of the GSHP, UDS, and AWE systems for building cooling/heating in developing countries. This chapter will be conducted from the following aspects: (1) The literature review and categories of GE utilization in the developing countries, mainly including the latest literature review on GE development and categories of utilization for building cooling/heating. (2) The common utilization of the GSHP system and its current application and development in the developing countries, mainly including the ground-coupled heat pump (GCHP) system and groundwater heat pump (GWHP) system. (3) The common utilization of the UDS system and its current application and development in the developing countries, mainly including the horizontal UDS system, vertical UDS system, and the corresponding coupled system with phase change energy storage and other advanced technologies. (4) The common utilization of the AWE system and its current application and development in the developing countries, mainly including the abandoned oil and gas wells. (5) The existing issues and in-depth analysis on the practical application of GE for building cooling/heating in the developing countries. This chapter can provide some effective guidelines on the various GE utilization forms for building cooling/heating in developing countries.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Design & Construction Managemen

Frontier ocean thermal/power and solar PV systems for transformation towards net-zero communities

Ocean thermal and power energy systems are promising driving forces for seashore coastal communities to achieve net-zero energy/emission target, whereas energy planning and management on ocean thermal/power and distributed building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) systems are critical, in terms of serving scale sizing and planning on geographical locations of district building community, and cycling aging of battery storages. However, the current literature provides insufficient studies on this topic. This study aims to address this research gap by transforming towards zero-energy coastal communities from the district level in subtropical regions, including centralised seawater-based chiller systems, distributed BIPVs and coastal oscillating water column technologies, as well as multi-directional Vehicle-to-Building energy interaction paradigms. Advanced energy management strategies were explored to enhance renewable penetration, import cost-saving, and deceleration of battery cycling aging, in response to relative renewable-to-demand difference, off-peak grid information with low price, and real-time battery cycling aging. Furthermore, in accordance with the power generation characteristic of two wave stations (i.e., Kau Yi Chau (KYC) and West Lamma Channel (WLC)) in Hong Kong, energy system planning and structural configurations of the coastal community were proposed and comparatively studied for the multi-criteria performance improvement. Research results showed that, compared to an air-cooled chiller, the water-cooled chiller with a much higher Coefficient of Performance (COP) will reduce the energy consumption of cooling systems, leading to a decrease in total electric demand from 134 to 126.5 kWh/m2·a. The scale for the net-zero energy district community with distributed BIPVs and oscillating water column was identified as 5 high-rise office buildings, 5 high-rise hotel buildings, 150 private cars and 120 public shuttle buses. Furthermore, the geographical location planning scheme on the Case 1 (office buildings close to KYC, and hotel buildings close to WLC) was identified as the most economically and environmentally feasible scheme, whereas the Case 3 (only office buildings are planned close to all power supply with oscillating water column) showed the highest flexibility in grid electricity shifting, together with the highest value of equivalent battery relative capacity. This study demonstrates techno-economic performances and energy flexibility of frontier ocean energy technologies in a coastal community under advanced energy management strategies, together with technical guidance for serving scale sizing and planning on geographical locations. The research results highlight the prospects and promote frontier ocean energy techniques in subtropical coastal regions.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care. Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Design & Construction Managemen

An inter-city energy migration framework for regional energy balance through daily commuting fuel-cell vehicles

Spatiotemporal energy interaction and sharing are promising solutions to penetrate renewable energy, enhance grid power stability, and improve regional energy flexibility. However, the current literature is restrained in a small-scale neighborhood level, without considering inter-city energy migration through spatiotemporal complementarity between renewable-abundant regions (like suburb or countryside areas) and demand-shortage regions (like city centers). In this study, the energy interaction boundary is extended from a neighborhood scale to an inter-city scale, to maximize the renewable energy penetration, demand coverage, and reduce regional energy imbalance. This study firstly proposes a holistic framework on inter-city transportation-based energy migration, consisting of a residential community with rooftop photovoltaic systems and electrical batteries, an office building, hydrogen vehicles (HVs), a hydrogen (H2) station, and local power grids, for the energy transmission between building groups in spatially different regions through the daily commuting of HVs. Optimal grid-regulation strategies are thereafter proposed and adopted to stabilize the grid power and reduce energy costs. Parametric analysis on energy trading strategies and prices has been conducted, to improve the participation motivations of different stakeholders. Results indicate that, compared to the reference case with isolated buildings and vehicles, the transportation-based energy migration framework covers 23.2 % of the office energy demand and elevates the community's renewable self-use ratio from 72.7 % to 98.6 %. Meanwhile, the maximum grid-export power in the renewable-abundant region (suburb residential community) and the annual grid-import power in the demand-shortage region (city-center office) are reduced by up to 86.9 % (from 155.7 to 20.4 kW) and 29.4 % (from 49.0 to 34.6 kW), respectively. Moreover, even considering the fuel cell degradation cost of HVs, the transportation-based energy migration framework reduces the operating costs of the office building and HVs (the H2 cost and the fuel cell degradation cost) by 16.4 % (from $52791.3 to$44154.7) and 1.7 % (from $27172.5 to$26707.4), respectively. Afterward, compared to the reference case, the peak-shaving and load-shaping grid-regulation strategies can decrease the peak grid-export power of the community by about 71.6 % (from 155.7 to 44.2 kW), and the maximum grid-import power of the office by 23.7 % (from 49.0 to 37.4 kW), respectively. Furthermore, the transportation-based energy migration framework is economically feasible, only when the renewable export price for H2 production is 0.07 $/kWh, the onsite-renewable-generated H2 lower than 6.5$/kg for the HV owners, and the vehicle-to-building electricity lower than 0.3 $/kWh for the office building. This study provides a novel inter-city energy migration framework with hydrogen networks to enhance district energy sharing, improve regional energy balance and reduce carbon emission, together with frontier guidelines on energy trading prices to promote participation motivations from different stakeholders.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Design & Construction Managemen

Policies, applications, barriers and future trends of building information modeling technology for building sustainability and informatization in China

The application of building information modeling (BIM) technology has effectively supported the high-quality development of building sustainability and informatization in China. However, few studies comprehensively analyzed the enacted policies, prevalent applications, and existing barriers of the latest application and development of BIM technology in building industry from building sustainability and informatization perspectives to provide effective consultation and guidelines for its rational scale application in China. This paper firstly made a statistical analysis on the policies and standards of BIM technology issued from 2011 to 2021 in China. Moreover, the latest application, development and existing issues of BIM technology in building sustainability and informatization were also comprehensively discussed and analyzed. The main conclusions indicated that the application status of BIM technology for building sustainability and informatization in China was large in quantity, wide in scope, but low in level. The existing issue and limitation in terms of BIM application in China was mainly due to the lack of standards and domestic-oriented tools. Finally, the future outlook and recommendations of BIM technology for building sustainability and informatization in China were also presented as avenues for upcoming research.Design & Construction Managemen

Quantification on fuel cell degradation and techno-economic analysis of a hydrogen-based grid-interactive residential energy sharing network with fuel-cell-powered vehicles

Hydrogen-based (H2-based) interactive energy networks for buildings and transportations provide novel solutions for carbon-neutrality transition, regional energy flexibility and independence on fossil fuel consumption, where vehicle fuel cells are key components for H2-electricity conversion and clean power supply. However, due to the complexity in thermodynamic working environments and frequent on/off operations, the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFCs) suffer from performance degradation, depending on cabin heat balance and power requirements, and the ignorance of the degradation may lead to the performance overestimation. In order to quantify fuel cell degradation in both daily cruise and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) interactions, this study firstly proposes a two-space cabin thermal model to quantify the ambient temperature of vehicle PEMFCs and the power supply from PEMFCs to vehicle HVAC systems. Afterwards, a stack voltage model is proposed to quantify the fuel cell degradation for multiple purposes, such as daily transportation and V2G interactions. Afterwards, the two models are coupled in a community-level based building-vehicle energy network, consisting of twenty single residential buildings, rooftop PV systems, four hydrogen vehicles (HVs), a H2 station, community-served micro power grid, local main power grid, and local H2 pipelines, located in California, U.S.A. Comparative analysis with and without fuel cell degradation is conducted to study the impact of dynamic fuel cell degradation on the energy flexibility and operating cost. Furthermore, a parametrical analysis is conducted on the integrated HV quantity and the grid feed-in tariff to reach trade-off strategies between associated fuel cell degradation costs and grid import cost savings. The results indicate that, in the proposed hydrogen-based building-vehicle energy network, the total fuel cell degradation is 3.16% per vehicle within one year, where 2.50% and 0.66% are caused by daily transportation and V2G interactions, respectively. Furthermore, in the H2-based residential community, the total fuel cell degradation cost is US$6945.2, accounting for 33.4$20770.61. The sensitivity analysis results showed that, when the HV quantity increases to twenty, the fuel cell degradation of each HV decreases to 2.50%, whereas the total fuel cell degradation cost increases to 42.8% of the total operating cost. Last but not the least, the cost saving by V2G interactions can compensate the fuel cell degradation cost when the grid feed-in tariff is reduced by 40%. Research results can provide basic modelling tools on dynamic fuel cell degradation, in respect to vehicle power supply, vehicle HVAC and V2G interactions, together with techno-economic feasibility analysis, paving path for the development of hydrogen energy for the carbon-neutrality transition.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Housing Quality and Process Innovatio

Transformation towards a carbon-neutral residential community with hydrogen economy and advanced energy management strategies

Cleaner power production, distributed renewable generation, building-vehicle integration, hydrogen storage and associated infrastructures are promising for transformation towards a carbon–neutral community, whereas the academia provides limited information through integrated solutions, like intermittent renewable integration, hydrogen sharing network, smart operation on electrolyzer and fuel cell, seasonal hydrogen storage and advanced heat recovery. This study proposes a hybrid electricity-hydrogen sharing system in California, United States, with synergistic electric, thermal and hydrogen interactions, including low-rise houses, rooftop photovoltaic panels, hydrogen vehicles, a hydrogen station, micro and utility power grid and hydrogen pipelines. Advanced energy management strategies were proposed to enhance energy flexibility and grid stability. Besides, simulation-based optimizations on smart power flows of vehicle-to-grid interaction and electrolyzer are conducted for further seasonal grid stability and annual cost saving. The obtained results indicate that, the green renewable-to-hydrogen can effectively reduce reliance on pipelines delivered hydrogen, and the hydrogen station is effective to address security concerns of high-pressure hydrogen and improve participators’ acceptance. Microgrid peer-to-peer sharing can improve hydrogen system efficiency under idling modes. Furthermore, the integrated system can reduce the annual net hydrogen consumption in transportation from 127.0 to 1.2 kg/vehicle. The smart operation (minimum input power of electrolyzer and fuel cell at 65 and 80 kW) can reduce the maximum mean hourly grid power to 78.2 kW by 24.2% and the annual energy cost to 1228.5 $/household by 38.9%. The proposed district hydrogen-based community framework can provide cutting-edge techno-economic guidelines for carbon-neutral transition with district peer-to-peer energy sharing, zero-energy buildings, hydrogen-based transportations together with smart strategies for high energy flexibility.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Housing Quality and Process Innovatio

Platform Development of BIM-Based Fire Safety Management System Considering the Construction Site

Fire at a construction site usually results in serious accidents. Therefore, fire management at the construction site is critical to decreasing possible accidents. However, conventional fire safety management can be problematic in many aspects, such as visualization, multi-stage alarm systems, and dynamic escape route optimization. To solve these issues, this paper develops a platform for a BIM-based fire safety management system that considers the construction site. The developed platform contains four subsystems: a remote monitoring subsystem, a fire visualization subsystem, a multi-stage fire alarm subsystem, and an escape route optimization subsystem. It detects the fire hazard in the early stage of the fire by the remote monitoring subsystem and transmits this information to the fire visualization subsystem for displaying. Furthermore, the multi-stage fire alarm subsystem sends warnings or alarms based on the fire’s severity. Moreover, the escape route optimization subsystem dynamically optimizes the evacuation routes by considering the actual number of people at the construction site and the potential crowding as people pass through the escapeway. Results show that this system can provide informative and on-time fire protection measures to different participants at the construction site. This study can also serve as a solution to improve fire safety management at the construction site.Design & Construction Managemen

Artificial intelligence powered large-scale renewable integrations in multi-energy systems for carbon neutrality transition: Challenges and future perspectives

The vigorous expansion of renewable energy as a substitute for fossil energy is the predominant route of action to achieve worldwide carbon neutrality. However, clean energy supplies in multi-energy building districts are still at the preliminary stages for energy paradigm transitions. In particular, technologies and methodologies for large-scale renewable energy integrations are still not sufficiently sophisticated, in terms of intelligent control management. Artificial intelligent (AI) techniques powered renewable energy systems can learn from bio-inspired lessons and provide power systems with intelligence. However, there are few in-depth dissections and deliberations on the roles of AI techniques for large-scale integrations of renewable energy and decarbonisation in multi-energy systems. This study summarizes the commonly used AI-related approaches and discusses their functional advantages when being applied in various renewable energy sectors, as well as their functional contribution to optimizing the operational control modalities of renewable energy and improving the overall operational effectiveness. This study also presents practical applications of various AI techniques in large-scale renewable energy integration systems, and analyzes their effectiveness through theoretical explanations and diverse case studies. In addition, this study introduces limitations and challenges associated with the large-scale renewable energy integrations for carbon neutrality transition using relevant AI techniques, and proposes further promising research perspectives and recommendations. This comprehensive review ignites advanced AI techniques for large-scale renewable integrations and provides valuable informational instructions and guidelines to different stakeholders (e.g., engineers, designers and scientists) for carbon neutrality transition.Design & Construction Managemen