A Digital-Twin Evaluation of Net Zero Energy Building for Existing Buildings

By Sakdirat Kaewunruen, Panrawee Rungskunroch, J. Welsh. Sustainability, 2018

198 citations recorded by the source corpus.

With buildings around the world accounting for nearly one-third of global energy demand and the availability of fossil fuels constantly on the decline, there is a need to ensure that this energy demand is efficiently and effectively managed using renewable energy now more than ever. Most research and case studies have focused on energy efficiency of ‘new’ buildings. In this study, both technical and financial viability of Net Zero Energy Buildings (NZEB) for ‘existing’ buildings will be highlighted. A rigorous review of open literatures concerning seven principal areas that in themselves define the concept of NZEB building is carried out. In practice, a suitable option of the NZEB solutions is needed for the evaluation and improvement for a specific geographical area. The evaluation and improvement has been carried out using a novel hierarchy-flow chart coupled with a Building Information Model (BIM). This BIM or digital twin is then used to thoroughly visualize each option, promote collaboration among stakeholders, and accurately estimate associated costs and associated technical issues encountered with producing an NZEB in a pre-determined location. This paper also provides a future model for NZEB applications in existing buildings, which applies renewable technologies to the building by aiming to identify ultimate benefit of the building especially in terms of effectiveness and efficiency in energy consumption. It is revealed that the digital twin is proven to be feasible for all renewable technologies applied on the NZEB buildings. Based on the case study in the UK, it can be affirmed that the suitable NZEB solution for an existing building can achieve the 23 year return period.

Subfields: Building and Construction, Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1a3edea92d16732bcced68e6bdc19ca6dc55f418

How researchers see this paper

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In Building and Construction

1. Ioannis N. Athanasiadis
2. Christos Pylianidis
3. Sjoukje A. Osinga
4. Samad M. E. Sepasgozar

In Environmental Engineering

1. Ioannis N. Athanasiadis
2. Christos Pylianidis
3. Sjoukje A. Osinga
4. Samad M. E. Sepasgozar

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Ioannis N. Athanasiadis
2. Christos Pylianidis
3. Sjoukje A. Osinga
4. Samad M. E. Sepasgozar

Citations in the corpus

• Introducing digital twins to agriculture (2021, methodology): “After scanning the articles for relevance, the results were reduced to (Kaewunruen et al., 2018; Patterson and Whelan, 2017; Fraga-Lamas and Fern ´ andez-Caram ´ es, 2019; Zheng et al., 2019; Tilbury, 2019; Dewitt et al., 2018; Bolton et al., 2018; Dong et al., 2019; Cohen et al., 2019; Tomiyama et…”
• Digital Twin: Vision, Benefits, Boundaries, and Creation for Buildings (2019, background): “DISCUSSION OF BENEFITS OF THE DIGITAL TWIN OF BUILDINGS Several benefits can be found in using the digital twin of a building, and one of them is the building energy efficiency [61] with regard to the heating and light distribution when and where required.”
• Differentiating Digital Twin from Digital Shadow: Elucidating a Paradigm Shift to Expedite a Smart, Sustainable Built Environment (2021, methodology): “Very few papers referred to digital models (e.g., BIM) and DT as similar concepts or used them interchangeably [33,66,67].”