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Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities
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Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities

A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "G: Energy and Buildings".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (7 November 2020) | Viewed by 43490

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Theocharis Tsoutsos

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
School of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Crete, TUC Campus, 73100 Chania, Greece
Interests: near zero energy; energy communities; sustainable islands; sustainable and smart cities; life cycle assessment; renewable energy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Climate change has now become a technologically, environmentally, socially, and economically major global challenge. The role of energy saving combined with clean energy power generation is now more dynamic due to decarbonization than even in the past and will be increased.

The recent EU Directives (on Energy Performance in Buildings—2018/844, Renewable Energy—2018/2001, and Energy Efficiency—2018/2002) and the Paris Agreement ratified by at least 180 out of 197 Parties to the Conventions show the trends of the near and medium future.

European initiatives, like the Covenant of Mayors, the regional energy policy and governance, Clean Energy for EU islands, and the Strategic Energy Technologies Plan (SET-Plan), contribute in an essential manner in the formulation and implementation of such policy and technology scheme. In parallel, though increasing the share of RE is high on the policy agenda, the general public had been slow to adopt it since the formation of cooperatives to combine energy poverty alleviation and democracy, alternative funding schemes, and cooperative models.

The selection of papers for this Special Issue will be based on:

  • Their innovation, in order to become a global S&T paradigm;
  • Their pure scientific and applied technology findings;
  • Their new and alternative APPROACH
Prof. Dr. Theocharis Tsoutsos
Guest Editor

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. Energies is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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.

Keywords

  • Applied research, policy, governance, and success stories of energy saving and renewables in: Cooperative models used in the built environment
  • Educational and research buildings
  • Public buildings (hospitals, municipal, sports) and buildings of the tertiary sector (hospitals, entertainment, sports, hotels, malls)
  • Analysis of behavioral changes in large scale energy consumption
  • Social buildings (schools, universities, social housing)
  • Community/village/neighborhood/island.

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Published Papers (7 papers)

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Editorial

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3 pages, 150 KiB  
Editorial
Introduction to the Special Issue: “Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities”
by Theocharis Tsoutsos
Energies 2020, 13(24), 6560; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13246560 - 12 Dec 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1494
Abstract
Nowadays, climate change has turned into the leading environmental, technological, social and economical worldwide challenge [...] Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)

Research

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19 pages, 1326 KiB  
Article
Smart Building Integration into a Smart City (SBISC): Development of a New Evaluation Framework
by Rasa Apanaviciene, Andrius Vanagas and Paris A. Fokaides
Energies 2020, 13(9), 2190; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13092190 - 1 May 2020
Cited by 95 | Viewed by 10892
Abstract
The aim of this study is to define the features that smart buildings should fulfil in order to be compatible with the overall context of the smart city and to introduce a new evaluation framework of Smart Buildings Integration into a Smart City [...] Read more.
The aim of this study is to define the features that smart buildings should fulfil in order to be compatible with the overall context of the smart city and to introduce a new evaluation framework of Smart Buildings Integration into a Smart City (SBISC). By analysing scientific literature as well as existing international and local project examples, the features of smart buildings that are expected to be adopted in smart cities were identified. The SBISC evaluation methodology was developed and applied to a set of selected projects. The literature review revealed that the smart building and smart city concepts were developed in different time frames and by different stakeholders and, thus, need to be realigned. The most important aspect is to employ in a smart building all the functionalities proposed by the smart areas of the city and vice versa by enabling the recommended features of smart materials, smart building services, and smart construction to serve for the surrounding systems. Nine office buildings representing smart building concept in different smart cities built within the period 2007–2018 with a total area from 10,000 m2 to 143,000 m2 were selected for the analysis. The research of selected projects revealed that the smart buildings have more potential to become smarter by utilizing smart cities capabilities in the areas of smart energy, smart mobility, smart life, and smart environment. Smart cities are the most prominent trend in creating a cohesive environment. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)
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18 pages, 1588 KiB  
Article
Big Data for Energy Management and Energy-Efficient Buildings
by Vangelis Marinakis
Energies 2020, 13(7), 1555; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13071555 - 27 Mar 2020
Cited by 104 | Viewed by 10268
Abstract
European buildings are producing a massive amount of data from a wide spectrum of energy-related sources, such as smart meters’ data, sensors and other Internet of things devices, creating new research challenges. In this context, the aim of this paper is to present [...] Read more.
European buildings are producing a massive amount of data from a wide spectrum of energy-related sources, such as smart meters’ data, sensors and other Internet of things devices, creating new research challenges. In this context, the aim of this paper is to present a high-level data-driven architecture for buildings data exchange, management and real-time processing. This multi-disciplinary big data environment enables the integration of cross-domain data, combined with emerging artificial intelligence algorithms and distributed ledgers technology. Semantically enhanced, interlinked and multilingual repositories of heterogeneous types of data are coupled with a set of visualization, querying and exploration tools, suitable application programming interfaces (APIs) for data exchange, as well as a suite of configurable and ready-to-use analytical components that implement a series of advanced machine learning and deep learning algorithms. The results from the pilot application of the proposed framework are presented and discussed. The data-driven architecture enables reliable and effective policymaking, as well as supports the creation and exploitation of innovative energy efficiency services through the utilization of a wide variety of data, for the effective operation of buildings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)
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Graphical abstract

22 pages, 4585 KiB  
Article
How Much Energy Efficient are Renewable Energy Sources Cooperatives’ Initiatives?
by Nikolaos Sifakis, Tryfon Daras and Theocharis Tsoutsos
Energies 2020, 13(5), 1136; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13051136 - 3 Mar 2020
Cited by 15 | Viewed by 3174
Abstract
In this paper is provided a systematic, in-depth, behavioral analysis of renewable energy sources cooperatives’ members. The analysis proved that in, on hand, there was a noticeable difference in the portion of affection of each proposed intervention on the actual energy consumption, which [...] Read more.
In this paper is provided a systematic, in-depth, behavioral analysis of renewable energy sources cooperatives’ members. The analysis proved that in, on hand, there was a noticeable difference in the portion of affection of each proposed intervention on the actual energy consumption, which may be to even ten times more in some cases, and on the other hand, the difference in energy consumption between the analyzed groups was noticeable as well. So, implementing energy efficiency interventions of various types, such as technical support, special tariffs, energy generation schemes, and smart meters, seems to lead to substantial energy reductions to even more than 10%, cumulatively, and reduces the environmental footprint. Additionally, the majority of energy efficiency interventions applied by the renewable energy sources cooperatives are proved to be effective in achieving their primary goal, sensitizing members, and leading them to a more efficient energy consumption behavior (“greener”). The results of the analysis showed that each proposed intervention had played a different but nonetheless significant role in the diminishing of the energy consumption of the members and that there was a noticeable difference in energy consumption between the analyzed groups. The results of the analysis demonstrated more than 22 GWh totally in green consumption, and almost 4500 tons of CO2 saved. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)
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20 pages, 1533 KiB  
Article
Establishment of Key Performance Indicators for Green Building Operations Monitoring—An Application to China Case Study
by Jinqiu Li, Qingqin Wang and Hao Zhou
Energies 2020, 13(4), 976; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13040976 - 21 Feb 2020
Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4497
Abstract
Released green building evaluation standards for operation stage include a huge number of indicators, which are very comprehensive and systematic. However, the indicators of these standards are very complicated and a large amount of time and manpower are consumed for their evaluation. To [...] Read more.
Released green building evaluation standards for operation stage include a huge number of indicators, which are very comprehensive and systematic. However, the indicators of these standards are very complicated and a large amount of time and manpower are consumed for their evaluation. To evaluate the operational performance of green buildings more practically and efficiently, some studies collect the operational data for part of the indicators (mainly focusing on building energy performance, indoor environmental quality or occupant satisfaction), which are too rough to evaluate the performance of green building. This paper proposed a total of 27 key performance indicators (KPIs) for green building operations monitoring. The number of proposed indicators is much fewer than the evaluation standards, as well as suitable for long-term monitoring, which can dramatically reduce evaluation time and cost. On the other hand, the indicators involving Outdoor environmental quality, Indoor environmental quality, HVAC system, P&D system, Renewable energy system, Total resource consumption and User behavior, which are more comprehensive and systematic than the conventional monitoring studies for operational performance of green building. Firstly, an indicators library for operations monitoring of green building was established based on relevant standards and literature review in this field. Secondly, “SMART” principle and Delphi method were adopted to select the key performance indicators for green building operations monitoring. Different background experts regarding green building industry were chosen to screen the most relevant, accessible and measurable indicators. Subsequently, two projects in China were selected for case study of key performance indicators proposed in this paper for green building operations monitoring to validate the feasibility and advancement. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)
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24 pages, 3957 KiB  
Article
How Climate Change Affects the Building Energy Consumptions Due to Cooling, Heating, and Electricity Demands of Italian Residential Sector
by Francesco Mancini and Gianluigi Lo Basso
Energies 2020, 13(2), 410; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13020410 - 14 Jan 2020
Cited by 36 | Viewed by 5915
Abstract
Climate change affects the buildings’ performance, significantly influencing energy consumption, as well as the indoor thermal comfort. As a consequence, the growing outdoor environmental temperatures entail a slight reduction in heating consumption and an increase in cooling consumption, with different overall effects depending [...] Read more.
Climate change affects the buildings’ performance, significantly influencing energy consumption, as well as the indoor thermal comfort. As a consequence, the growing outdoor environmental temperatures entail a slight reduction in heating consumption and an increase in cooling consumption, with different overall effects depending on the latitudes. This document focuses attention on the Italian residential sector, considering the current and reduced meteorological data, in anticipation of future climate scenarios. According to a sample of 419 buildings, referring to the climatic conditions of Milan, Florence, Rome, and Naples, the heating and cooling needs are calculated by a simplified dynamic model, in current and future conditions. The effects of the simplest climate adaptation measure, represented by the introduction of new air conditioners, have been also evaluated. The simulations results show an important reduction in complex energy consumption (Milan −6%, Florence −22%, Rome −25%, Naples −30%), due to the greater incidence of heating demand in the Italian context. However, the increase in air conditioning electrical consumption over the hot season (Milan +11%, Florence +20%, Rome +19%, Naples +16%) can play a critical role for the electrical system; for that reason, the introduction of photovoltaic arrays as a compensatory measure have been analysed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)
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Review

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25 pages, 561 KiB  
Review
Urban Warming and Cities’ Microclimates: Investigation Methods and Mitigation Strategies—A Review
by Stella Tsoka, Katerina Tsikaloudaki, Theodoros Theodosiou and Dimitrios Bikas
Energies 2020, 13(6), 1414; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13061414 - 18 Mar 2020
Cited by 60 | Viewed by 6261
Abstract
The increased rates of urbanization and industrialization of the 20th and 21st centuries have dramatically changed the land use and cover of modern cities, contributing to the degradation of the urban microclimate and the rise of the ambient urban air temperatures. Given the [...] Read more.
The increased rates of urbanization and industrialization of the 20th and 21st centuries have dramatically changed the land use and cover of modern cities, contributing to the degradation of the urban microclimate and the rise of the ambient urban air temperatures. Given the multiple negative energy, environmental and social consequences of urban warming, the present paper summarizes the findings of previous studies, assessing the main causes of the phenomenon along with the key investigation methods involving experimental and computational approaches. There follows a description of the most common mitigations, and adaption strategies towards the attenuation of urban warming are described. The analyzed elements include the addition of green spaces such as trees, grass and green roofs; changes on the albedo of the urban surfaces and water-based techniques, as well as a combination of them. The discussion of the reported findings in the existing literature clearly reflects the impact of urban morphology on the outdoor thermal environment, providing also useful information for professionals and urban planners involved at the phase of decision-making. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sustainable Buildings for Citizens, Cities and Communities)
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