Sustainability in Affordable Housing: Trends and Opportunities for Connected Communities
Publication: Computing in Civil Engineering 2021
ABSTRACT
One of the central goals of affordable housing is to provide a decent and suitable living environment, which includes ensuring the housing is of good quality and is economically affordable. It is also vital for housing to continue to maintain these qualities throughout the building’s life cycle. Incorporating sustainable building practices can improve energy efficiency, reduce the waste of resources, and provide healthier living environments for the occupants. With the increase in intelligent technologies, opportunities exist to enhance sustainability and affordability in residential communities by utilizing smart technologies. This paper involves a critical review of the literature involving sustainable buildings and affordable housing and seeks to identify opportunities to implement smart and connected technologies while enabling those communities to achieve sustainability goals. In addition, this study highlights the current trends such as building-to-grid connections, distributed energy resources, and the potential impacts of these technologies on connected communities. The study highlights several opportunities to improve sustainability and connectedness in affordable housing. However, several factors should be addressed in implementing new technology, such as utilizing proper data management, defining beneficial information exchanges, and addressing complex human-building interactions.
Get full access to this chapter
View all available purchase options and get full access to this chapter.
REFERENCES
Adabre, M. A., and A. P. Chan. 2019. “Critical success factors (CSFs) for sustainable affordable housing.” Building and Environment, 156, 203–214.
Aghbashlo, M., M. Tabatabaei, B. B. Hosseini, M. Dashti, and M. Soufian. 2018. “Performance assessment of a wind power plant using standard exergy and extended exergy accounting (EEA) approaches.” Journal of Cleaner Production, 127–136.
Dakheel, J. A., C. Del Pero, N. Aste, and F. Leonforte. 2020. “Smart buildings features and key performance indicators: A review.” Sustainable Cities and Society, 61, 102328, 1-20.
Dewick, P., and M. Miozzo. 2004. “Networks and innovation: sustainable technologies in Scottish social housing.” R & D Management, 34(3), 323–333. https://doi.org/10.1111/%0Aj.1467-9310.2004.00342.x.
EIA (Energy Information Administration). 2014. Annual Energy Review 2014. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Energy, 2014. Available at: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/archive/aeo14/.
Fisk, W. J. 2000. “Estimates of potential nationwide productivity and health benefits from better indoor environments: an update.” Indoor air quality handbook, 4.
Forman, A. 2017. “Energy justice at the end of the wire: Enacting community energy and equity in Wales.” Energy Policy, 107(649–657).
Gonzalez-Eguino, M. 2015. “Energy poverty: an overview.” Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev., 7, 377–385.
Healy, N., and J. Barry. 2017. “Politicizing energy justice and energy system transitions: fossil fuel divestment and a just transition.” Energy Policy, 108, 451–459.
Hernandez, D., and S. Bird. 2010. “Energy burden and the need for integrated low-income housing and energy policy.” Poverty & Public Policy, 2, 668–688.
Hoppe, T., F. H. Coenen, and M. T. Bekendam. 2019. “Renewable Energy Cooperatives as a Stimulating Factor in Household Energy Savings.” Energies, 12(7), 1188.
IEA (International Energy Agency). 2015. Trends 2015 in Photovoltaic Applications, Int. Energy Agency.
IREA (International Renewable Energy Agency). 2020. Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2019. International Renewable Energy Agency, Abu Dhabi.
JCHSHU (Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University). 2020. The State of the Nation’s Housing 2020. Harvard Graduate School of Design, Harvard Kennedy School. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_The_State_of_the_Nations_Housing_2020_Report_Revised_120720.pdf.
Kim, T., C. Ramos, and S. Mohammed. 2017. Smart City and IoT. Future Generation Computer Systems, 76, 159–162.
King, J., and C. Perry. 2017. Smart buildings: Using smart technology to save energy in existing buildings. American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. https://www.aceee.org/sites/default/files/publications/researchreports/a1701.pdf.
Lê, Q., H. B. Nguyen, and T. Barnett. 2012. “Smart homes for older people: Positive aging in a digital world.” Future Internet, 4(2), 607–617.
Lee, J., and M. M. Shepley. 2020. “Benefits of solar photovoltaic systems for low-income families in social housing of Korea: Renewable energy applications as solutions to energy poverty.” Journal of Building Engineering, 28, 101016.
Miller, W., D. Vine, and Z. Amin. 2017. “Energy efficiency of housing for older citizens: Does it matter?” Energy Policy, 101, 216–224.
Perry, C., H. Bastian, and D. York. 2019. Grid-interactive efficient building utility programs: State of the market. American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, Washington, DC,
Preciado-Perez, O. A., and S. Fotios. 2017. “Comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of energy efficiency in social housing. Case study: Northwest Mexico.” Energy and Buildings, 152, 279–289.
Poser, H., J. Altman, F. Ab Egg, A. Grananta, and R. Board. 2014. Development And Integration of Renewable Energy: Lessons Learned From Germany.
Rahnama, M., M. Aghbashlo, M. Tabatabaei, M. Khanali, and M. A. Rosen. 2019. “Spatio-temporal solar exergoeconomic and exergoenvironmental maps for photovoltaic systems.” Energy Conversion and Management, 195, 701–711. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.%0Aenconman.2019.05.051.
Rogers, J. C., E. A. Simmons, I. Convery, and A. Weatherall. 2008. “Public perceptions of opportunities for community-based renewable energy projects.” Energy Policy, 36, 4217–4226.
Shaw-Williams, D., and C. Susilawati. 2020. “A techno-economic evaluation of Virtual Net Metering for the Australian community housing sector.” Applied Energy, 261, 114271.
Sovacool, B. K., and M. H. Dworkin. 2015. “Energy Justice: Conceptual insights and practical application.” Applied Energy, 42, 435–444.
Sun, Y., H. Song, A. J. Jara, and R. Bie. 2016. “Internet of things and big data analytics for smart and connected communities.” IEEE Access, 4, 766–773.
Tardy, F., and B. Lee. 2019. “Building related energy poverty in developed countries – Past, present, and future from a Canadian perspective.” Energy and Buildings, 194, 46–61.
The Climate Group. 2008. SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. A report by The Climate Group on behalf of the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI). https://www.compromisorse.com/upload/estudios/000/36/smart2020.pdf.
Tirado Herrero, S., L. Nicholls, and Y. Strengers. 2018. “Smart home technologies in everyday life: Do they address key energy challenges in households?” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 31, 65–70.
UN DESA (United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs). 2018. 68% of the world population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050, says UN. https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/2018-revision-of-world-urbanization-prospects.html.
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme). 2016. Delivering Sustainable Energy in a Changing Climate: Strategy Note on Sustainable Energy, United Nations Dev. Program.
US EPA. 2003. Indoor air quality and student performance. Washington, DC.
Wallbaum, H., W. Ostermeyer, C. Salzer, and E. Zea Escamilla. 2012. “Indicator based sustainability assessment tool for affordable housing construction technologies.” Ecological Indicators, 18, 353–364.
Wong, J. L., P. S. Teh, V. X. Wang, and L. M. Chia. 2013. “Solar Capability Building Programme for Public Housing.” Energy Procedia, 33, 288–301.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Computing in Civil Engineering 2021
Pages: 1220 - 1227
History
Published online: May 24, 2022
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.