Carbon Emission Modelling of Energy Systems for Retrofit Office Buildings

Summary

In order to control greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has proposed a carbon intensity reduction target of 50%-60% by 2020, compared to the 2005 level. The latest Hong Kong Energy End-Use report indicates that buildings account for 92% of all electricity use and 60% of GHG emissions in Hong Kong. Scotland also prioritises the role of the built environment in its climate strategy. Therefore, reducing energy use and carbon emissions of buildings is a priority in both Hong Kong and Edinburgh’s climate agenda and should be promoted. Therefore, low/zero carbon buildings (L/ZCB) has emerged as an effective approach to fulfil potential carbon reductions. The bulk of previous building energy research has focused on building-centric solutions, e.g. building envelope and building services systems. However, there is limited knowledge of the effects of energy supply-centric solutions on building carbon reductions. Also, for office buildings, renovation of building envelope might cause unacceptable disturbance to the fast-paced business environment. This project aims to develop and verify a carbon emission model of energy-supply-centric energy systems for L/ZCB retrofit office buildings. The research is designed to enable a comparative case of retrofit office buildings in Hong Kong vs. Edinburgh. The different boundary conditions of these two cities offer a good opportunity to examine and verify the carbon emission model of energy systems.

Publications

Pan, W., Qin, H. & Zhao, Y. (2017). Challenges for energy and carbon modeling of high-rise buildings: The case of public housing in Hong Kong. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 123, 208-218. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.02.013
Yu, C., Pan, W., Zhao, Y. & Li, Y. (2015) Challenges for Modeling Energy Use in High-rise Office Buildings in Hong Kong. Procedia Engineering, 121, 513-520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2015.08.1100 , SCI.

Team

This project is led and coordinated by Professor Wei Pan of Department of Civil Engineering of The University of Hong Kong (HKU), with project team members from HKU and The University of Edinburg.

Acknowledgments

This project is funded by Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) with Scottish Funding Council (SFC) Joint Research Scheme (Project number: X-HKU711/14).