bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of measurement techniques for modelling buildings in energy simulation and labelling tool
Authors: Gonzalez-Caceres A , Hempel E E 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
The dwellings built between 1945 and 1980 have the largest energy demand in the EU, which by 2009 represented 70% of the final energy use in buildings. A great portion of these dwellings have not been retrofitted and most of them were not built with any energy efficiency measures, since most of the energy regulations were implemented after the oil crisis in the 1970s. The current renovation rate of residential buildings has not reached targeted goals, due to the numerous barriers that arise in the renovation process. The evaluation and labelling of existing residential buildings represent a big challenge, and the lack of geometric information on buildings is one of the main issues hindering an assessment through simulations. Currently, there is no scientific literature that focuses on improving this task. However, the emergence of new technologies from different fields may streamline the geometric data gathering with the modelling task and greatly improve both accuracy and workload. This study focuses on the revision of geometry measurement techniques, based on the application and quantification of the benefits and barriers that these techniques represent for their use in the building simulation and labelling. The techniques tested were Hololens, handheld laser scanner and handheld laser distance measurer. The evaluation considers time, cost and accuracy as well the tasks related to the post process of the data in BIM, which is not mandatory for building simulation, but it provided multiple benefits.
Use of timber for the sustainable city growth and its role in the climate change.
Authors: Hamadyk E , Amado M , de Brito J 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
According to the predictions of United Nations (2017) there are more than 7 billion people on Earth and this number will reach 9.7 billion by 2050. Today, most of the population lives in the urban areas and the rapid growth entails more construction in a housing sector. Since the industrial revolution the world has experienced countless technological attainments and on the other hand risky increase in natural resources use, energy consumption, greenhouse gases emission, ozone depletion, toxification and global temperature rising. The question how the cities can respond to urban growth is related to the sustainable goals of Agenda 2030. This research discusses potential of the usage of timber as construction material and it also brings the answer to this question. The wood is 100% renewable, recyclable and nontoxic material with capacity to absorb CO2 and perform low embodied energy. The increase of timber use in the construction contributes to sustainable development and to the reduction of waste, CO2 emission, as well as energy consumption. The aim of this paper is to discuss the advantages of using timber as a sustainable solution in urban context, in comparison with most commonly used concrete. The findings demonstrate the value of timber as sustainable construction material.
Achieving nearly zero energy buildings in Greece
Authors: Bololia Maria , Androutsopoulos Andreas 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Energy consumption of buildings in Europe is still high despite their significant savings potential. The European Union has issued a number of directives to reduce energy consumption in buildings in its Member States. Each country has put in place the best minimum requirements to make its buildings more energy efficient. By the beginning of 2021 at the latest; all new and deep renovated buildings must have almost zero energy consumption. The latter is the subject of this paper, which focuses on identifying Greece’s energy requirements for newly built buildings to meet the requirements of a nearly zero energy building (nZEB).
Two categories of building use are considered: a typical single-family house and an office building which apply bioclimatic design principles that all newly built buildings have to take into consideration, while all four climatic zones of Greece were looked into. The work presents the combinations - scenarios of building envelope characteristics, electro-mechanical installations, and RES technologies used in the modeled buildings, first to meet the minimum national requirements and secondly to reach minimum energy consumption. The calculations made use of the national program for the determination of the energy efficiency of the TEE KENAK building. The results show that combinations of a variety of building envelope components, electromechanical systems, and RES technologies meet the country’s energy saving targets under its 2030 national energy efficiency plans.
Nearly Zero Energy Ports: A necessity or a green upgrade?
Authors: Sifakis N , Tsoutsos T 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Ports are situated in susceptible, to climate change, areas. The continuous technological advances on the global market and the growth of the trade activities are forcing ports to find new ways to be both competitive and harmonize with sustainable development’s “legislation”. Specifically, this actually means to practically evaluate all the possible actions and the mean which can be utilized in order to achieve their optimization and greenification. The main objective of this paper is to investigate, analyse and evaluate, through the proposed methodology, various energy-related data of the port of Rethymno and propose a hypothetic model to achieve the near Zero Energy Port (nZEP) concept and the criteria that have to be fulfilled in order to accomplish such an innovative purpose. The methodology to assess a port into the nZEP’s concept is presented, including various crucial guidelines and criteria to define a port as nZEP. Last but not least, the research outcomes specify that there are some curtain gaps and opportunities. Thus, this paper establishes an educational and innovative handbook about an initial attempt to greenify a Mediterranean port and adapt it to nZEP’s concept, utilizing good and essential practices and interventions/implementations in order to achieve this intention.
Towards Zero Energy Settlements – A brief note on commissioning and POE within the EU ZeroPlus Settlements
Authors: Meir Isaac A. , Isaac Shabtai , Kolokotsa Denia , Gobakis Konstantinos , Pignatta Gloria 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Ambitious goals for the upgrade of construction aimed at energy conservation may quite often bounce due to different barriers, from design and detailing, through construction, to commissioning and behavioural ones. To overcome these, this paper focuses on the missing link of the construction process – the Informative Commissioning, the pre and post occupancy monitoring, and the POE, all integral parts of the ZeroPlus EU project. Limitations, barriers and other considerations and complexities encountered through the project’s stages will be presented, alongside the formation of the methodology and some preliminary results of the first case studies to be commissioned.
Sustainable structural intervention methodology for vulnerable buildings from a lifecycle perspective
Authors: Keskin F S , Martinez-Vazquez P , Baniotopoulos C 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
The frequency of disasters recorded around the globe, combined with inadequate enforcement of design codes, the natural deterioration of the existing built fabric and poor use of land due to rapid urbanisation make urban infrastructure vulnerable to experience damage. This eventually creates the need for building retrofitting, which triggers further environmental degradation. Furthermore, the lack of a well-defined approach to guarantee sustainable structural recovery derives on structural interventions focusing on strengthening elements to improve their performance only, hence ignoring the plethora of building deficiencies associated to post-disaster retrofit. The aim of this investigation is therefore to embed structural upgrading within the principles of sustainability while developing the metrics to enable structural damage reduction. This will contribute to optimising post-disaster building interventions. The proposed approach is applied to a pilot case to illustrate identified alternatives for improving the performance of otherwise vulnerable infrastructure from a life-cycle perspective.
Comparative study of measurement and verification (M&V) baseline models for quantifying energy savings in building renovations
Authors: Cabrera Adalberto Guerra , Ntimos Dimitris 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Measurement and verification (M&V) is the process of quantifying energy savings originated by one or several energy conservation measures (ECM) in an existing building. The estimation of the savings consist of comparing actual energy consumption to the adjusted baseline model. This paper focuses on comparing three approaches for creating baseline models: linear, symbolic regression (SR) and extreme gradient boost (XGBoost); and discusses the advantages and drawbacks on each of them from a practitioner’s perspective. In this paper, these approaches are assessed qualitatively and quantitatively. The qualitative assessment compares the type of model output, interpretability and calibration time. Linear model excels in all three criteria whereas the XGBoost is the worst option for model output and interpretability. SR model is the worst performing in terms of calibration time, but intermediate model for output and interpretability. Quantitative assessment is done through the quantification of prediction errors in 367 buildings after being calibrated with hourly data for a 12-month period. The XGBoost model has the highest prediction accuracy in terms of CVRMSE. The linear model performs significantly well in terms of NMBE. SR preforms well in terms of CVRMSE and has the best median NMBE overall remaining as the most accurate interpretable option. The results show different benefits and drawbacks of each approach and the implementation of SR model for this application is the main innovation of this paper.
Co-creating sustainable urban planning and mobility interventions in the city of Trikala
Authors: Angelidou Margarita , Karachaliou Eleni , Matonaki Anastasia , Christina Karaberi 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
In recent years, the European Union has been promoting social innovation and new business models to support the long-term transition towards low-emission, sustainable urban development. To this end, a demand-driven approach is seen as key to enhancing the wealth of sustainable urban planning and mobility solutions, increasing their relevance and responsiveness to real life challenges, saving public Research & Development investment resources and most importantly, nurturing the uptake of those solutions by their end users. In addition, cities are seen as ideal places of experimentation because they accumulate a wealth of activities and stakeholders, as well as the complex networks and transactions among those. This paper presents results from the Horizon2020 Research and Innovation Project “Cities-4-People”, financed under the ‘Smart, green and integrated transport’ part of the Horizon2020 Work Programme of 2016 - 2017, topic “New ways of supporting development and implementation of neighbourhood-level and urban-district-level transport innovations” (MG-4.5-2016). More particularly, in this paper we present the methodology, results and conclusions for the co-creation of sustainable urban planning and mobility solutions in the city of Trikala. This phase of the project took place during the period April 2018 – September 2018 and was administered by the Trikala project team of the Cities-4-People consortium (Q-Plan International and E-Trikala).
Sustainable development practices and its effect on green buildings
Authors: Abdelfattah A F 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Sustainable development is an important aspect of society which fulfils the present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It gives us a new way of thinking through and managing human impact on the world that can generate long lasting positive results for the greater benefit of human societies. The concepts of sustainability and sustainable development are discussed and analyzed from different theoretical perspectives. The alternative paradigms and main objectives which provide supporting sustainable development are explored. They show the complexity of choosing the right actions towards sustainable development. And, the three pillars of sustainable development which are social, economic and environmental should be considered together to achieve the effective planning for sustainable future through a collaboration of experts from different disciplines. International goals of sustainability have led to the development of the green building movement that has had unprecedented success. Sustainable development and green buildings are often used interchangeably. Although, they are related, they are not the same. There are many green building rating systems over the world. United States Green Building Council administered Leadership in Energy and Environment Design (LEED) is the global market leader in the rating systems. LEED is a laudable and has a great effort in moving towards sustainable development by converting the built environment into green. Furthermore, some other rating systems that have been developed to measure the sustainability level of green buildings and provide best practice experience in their highest certification level are illustrated. This paper aims to provide an overview of how green building relates to sustainable development practices which is divided into two sections. The first section defines green building and discusses what makes buildings green. And, the second section discusses the environmental impacts of traditional buildings and explains common green building practices.
Life Cycle Analysis of lattice and tubular wind turbine towers. A comparative study.
Authors: Stavridou N , Koltsakis E , Baniotopoulos C C 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Wind energy is the most promising sustainable energy source as one can conclude from the recent boost of wind farms installed globally. It is rather important to investigate the total environmental impacts of wind energy, not only taking into account the zero CO2 emissions when producing electricity from wind but also assessing the total environmental burdens and resources requirement associated with the entire lifetime of all the processes related with the energy chain. In order to quantify the environmental impacts of wind energy life cycle analysis (LCA) is performed. Life cycle analysis of tall onshore wind turbine towers is not very thoroughly investigated in literature, which is a first class opportunity to perform high-end research. More specifically in this work, studies examining the life cycle performance of two types of onshore wind turbine towers are investigated; lattice and tubular. The definition of life cycle analysis and the steps applied for its implementation are also discussed. For Wind Energy LCA five phases are usually taken into consideration: manufacturing and construction, onsite erection and assembling, transportation, operation and finally dismantling. At the first steps of the present investigation, a typical system boundary is taken into account and a literature review summary describing the main conclusions from LCA studies on onshore wind turbine towers are presented. From recent LCA results on onshore wind turbines, the manufacturing stage is proved to have the greatest environmental impact, while recycling (that is used as a preferred scenario instead of reuse in the dismantling phase) is proved to act in the most favourable way. In the present study, two wind turbine towers of the same size and same energy production capacity are investigated and compared. Both structural systems, the tubular and the lattice one are proved robust enough and the total material used for their production is calculated in previous work of the research group. The two systems have different production methods, different amounts of material used and different mounting procedures which diversifies their lifecycle performance as a total and their performance in all LCA phases examined separately. Open LCA software was used to assess the lifecycle performance of the two different wind turbine tower types and very important conclusions were derived. After having performed the structural analysis of the two tower types, the LCA analysis completes the series of criteria that have to be taken into account when deciding between the two tower configurations towards more robust, more economical and more sustainable wind energy structures.
The Role of policies, Regulations and Standards: Towards Sustainability in Kenya’s Building Environment.
Authors: Sangori R. , Kitio V. , Thontteh E. , Omonge S. 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
This study seeks to explore the policy and institutional frameworks including regulations and standards in promoting sustainability. The paper reports an on-going study on how policies, regulations and standards promotes adoption of sustainable building materials and technologies in relation to utilization of location specific materials and their effects on carbon sequestration potential of the natural ecosystem. The study set to establish the building materials sustainability selection criteria techniques, and supporting policies and institutional frameworks. There are 14 sustainability selection techniques available for application by built environment practitioners. Over 20 policies exists in Kenya that addresses climate change, built environment and urbanization against which to evaluate uptake and effectiveness of building materials sustainability selection criteria techniques. This study is purposive in nature as such, key informant questionnaire assisted tool was used. Our findings demonstrate that 77.4% sampled built environment practitioners did not appreciate that current policies adequately support adoption of emerging building technologies. There is low uptake coupled with ineffective sustainability selection criteria techniques. The study recommends review of existing legislations to accommodate emerging technologies and selection criteria tools, financing of pilot projects, standardization of building materials sustainability selection criteria techniques, training and sensitization, and inventory of building materials and sources.
Developing a strategy for energy efficiency in the Egyptian building sector
Authors: Caponigro Marco , Manoloudis Athanasios , Papadopoulos Agis M. 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Global warming is a major threat for each country worldwide, in particular however for the Middle East and North African (MENA) region. Furthermore, inefficiency has been a common feature of the energy use in most of the MENA countries for the last decades; high subsidies on retail energy prices covered this fact for years, however as the oil prices shrank, this was no longer possible due to reduced revenues. The combination of those two reasons led since the early 2010s some MENA countries to develop energy efficiency (EE) policies, whilst others are trying to catch up. Egypt is the most populous country, facing many challenges: a further significant growth of population and an expected high annual economic growth on the one hand, the need for new infrastructure and the scarcity of water on the other. The present paper focuses on the situation of Egyptian building sector with respect to prevailing energy efficiency regulations and their implantation, as well as on the elaboration of proposals for a viable and effective strategy to improve conditions.
Measurement methods of socioeconomic impacts of renewable energy projects
Authors: Karytsas Spyridon , Mendrinos Dimitrios , Karytsas Constantine 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
The development and operation of renewable energy projects can offer a variety of environmental, economic and social impacts for all associated stakeholders, thus assisting the procedure of social acceptance of such projects. In most cases importance is given to the measurement and assessment mainly of the environmental and economic impacts, leaving behind the investigation of social impacts, although they are an aspect that can enhance projects’ acceptance throughout the lifecycle of the project (planning, construction, and operation). The present study reviews the work that has been done so far regarding the methods for measuring the social impacts created by renewable energy projects, with the aim of enhancing the understanding and facilitating further improvements in the specific field. In this context, the study a) examines all relevant terms as defined by previous literature, b) takes under consideration the importance of measuring social impacts, c) assesses the steps and guidelines involved in social impact measurement, d) investigates applied indicators, metrics and methods, and e) reviews the existing studies that focus on the measurement of socioeconomic impacts of renewable energy technologies and projects.
Serious game for modelling neighbourhood energy supply scenarios
Authors: Prilenska Viktorija 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
Scientific evidence suggests that in developing neighbourhoods, which are under-serviced by centralised energy distribution grids, the reasonable solution is a mix of grid and off-grid energy provision, as well as a mix of fossil fuels and renewable energy sources. The assumption shapes a theoretical foundation for a serious game, Energy Game, which emerged as a result of an international interdisciplinary student collaboration. The aim of the Game, on the one hand, is the simulation of user behaviour choosing between various energy options based on their cost efficiency, and on the other hand, the education of design and engineering students, as well as other interested parties, about neighbourhood energy production and delivery. The outcome of the Game represents a distribution of various energy options across the neighbourhood, and may potentially inform planning decisions about neighbourhood energy provision. The results of game sessions with students indicate the viability of the Game for education, energy demand and supply modelling, as well as highlighted the requirements for enhancing the playfulness of the Game and, apart from costs, the need to include the environmental impact of energy provision options into game mechanics.
Bioclimatic analysis of streets and buildings of the Byzantine period
Authors: Bougiatioti Flora , Oikonomou Aineias 
Published: January 2020

Abstract
The paper focusses on the scale of street configurations and individual buildings of the Byzantine period and investigates, with the use of simulation software (Design Builder®) different parameters of their bioclimatic performance. The study is based on hypothetical, “typical” configurations and consists of two distinct parts:
(a) Quantitative (CFD) analysis of the airflow in typical street configurations. These were derived from the available bibliography on the Byzantine Building Codes, which influenced the front, side and rear distances between buildings of different uses, the building heights, the number and dimensions of the windows, the depth and distances of the projections, etc.
(b) Thermal analysis (heating and cooling period simulations) of a typical two-storeyed house. The design (typology and form) of the building was derived from the available bibliography, while the construction characteristics are assumed to be similar to those of the subsequent historical architecture of the areas around the Eastern Mediterranean.