Exploring the Empirical Relationship between Urban Form and Building Energy Use
Publication: Computing in Civil Engineering 2023
ABSTRACT
Buildings account for 30% of global energy use and are expected to continue to increase as urbanization progresses. Among the various drivers, urban form is known to have a non-negligible effect on building energy consumption. Past studies have focused on modeling the physical obstructions and microclimate around the building. However, large-scale modeling is usually computationally prohibitive. In this paper, we aim to empirically evaluate how urban form affects energy use of residential and commercial buildings in Santa Clara, CA. We combined a large-scale building energy dataset with information on building properties and urban environment. We build various regression models and analyze the non-linearity and interaction effects between variables. Results show that the relationship between density and building energy use is non-linear and the monthly energy use intensity could drop by up to 50%, 18%, and 17% for single-family residential, multi-family residential, and commercial buildings, respectively, if we increase the density in surrounding areas. These results can assist urban infrastructure planning and policy-making professionals to make informed decisions regarding land-use and building decarbonization goals.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Computing in Civil Engineering 2023
Pages: 953 - 961
History
Published online: Jan 25, 2024
ASCE Technical Topics:
- Buildings
- Commercial buildings
- Driver behavior
- Energy consumption
- Energy engineering
- Engineering fundamentals
- Facilities (by type)
- Infrastructure
- Models (by type)
- Physical models
- Residential buildings
- Structural engineering
- Structures (by type)
- Traffic engineering
- Transportation engineering
- Urban and regional development
- Urban areas
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