Heat Pump Systems and Thermal Technology for Buildings

Dear Colleagues,

At present, energy utilization and carbon emissions have become important issues on a global scale and have received great attention from the international community. In order to cope with the dual pressures of climate change and the energy crisis, many countries have formulated a series of energy-saving and carbon-reduction policies to limit the consumption of fossil energy in various industries. According to the United Nations Environment Programme's newly released "2022 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction", the construction industry accounts for up to 34% and 35% of global total energy consumption and carbon emissions, respectively. In particular, the International Energy Agency's CO₂ Emissions in 2022 states that global energy-related CO₂ emissions increased by 321 Mt in 2022, of which 60 Mt CO₂ can be attributed to cooling and heating demand in extreme weather.

Therefore, how to reduce the energy consumption and carbon emissions of buildings while pursuing higher thermal comfort has become the focus of scholars in the architecture field. Improving the heat transfer performance of buildings, reducing the energy demand for heating and cooling in buildings, and increasing the proportion of renewable energy are effective ways to save energy and reduce carbon in buildings.

Despite the existence of many studies dedicated to exploring energy utilization and carbon emissions, there are still many challenges and opportunities for energy saving and emission reduction in building heating and cooling. In this regard, the journal Buildings announces a call for papers for a Special Issue devoted to "Heat Pump Systems and Thermal Technology for Buildings". The Special Issue seeks papers that expand upon the current literature and understanding of the buildings thermal technology and heat pump systems. Papers discussing how to use advanced building technology and envelope high-performance buildings are also welcome. Original research and review papers on the following topics are welcome:

• Energy efficiency in buildings;
• Building heat pump (ground source, air source, etc.) systems;
• Building renewable energy air conditioning system;
• Building thermal environment control;
• Building intelligent ventilation;
• Building intelligent energy system;
• Electricity demand response technologies for building air conditioning systems;
• Building renewable energy utilization technology;
• Passive building energy-saving technology;
• New building envelope structures;
• Utilization of high-performance building envelope materials;
• Building heat transfer model;
• Thermal performance of building components (walls, floors, roofs, windows, doors, etc.);
• Building active and passive thermal storage technologies.

All types of research methods are acceptable: experimental, theoretical, numerical, analytical, computational, case studies, etc. The main criteria accepted by the paper are academic excellence, scientific rationality, and originality and novelty of applications, methods or experiments.

Dr. Weilin Li
Dr. Jiayin Zhu
Dr. Liu Yang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Buildings is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• heat pump
• energy efficiency
• renewable energy
• building heat storage
• smart energy systems
• indoor thermal environment
• air conditioning systems