Designing an Energy-Resilient Neighbourhood Using an Urban Building Energy Model

A climate resilient city, perforce, has an efficient and robust energy infrastructure that can harvest local energy resources and match energy sources and sinks that vary over space and time. This paper explores the use of an urban building energy model (UBEM) to examine the potential for creating a near-zero carbon neighbourhood in Dublin (Ireland) that is characterised by diverse land-uses and old and new building stock. UBEMs are a relatively new tool that allows the simulation of building energy demand across an urbanised landscape and can account for building layout, including the effects of overshadowing and the potential for facade retrofits and energy generation. In this research, a novel geographic database of buildings is created using archetypes, and the associated information on dimensions, fabric and energy systems is integrated into the Urban Modelling Interface (UMI). The model is used to simulate current and future energy demand based on climate change projections and to test scenarios that apply retrofits to the existing stock and that link proximate land-uses and land-covers. The latter allows a significant decoupling of the neighbourhood from an offsite electricity generation station with a high carbon output. The findings of this paper demonstrate that treating neighbourhoods as single energy entities rather than collections of individual sectors allows the development of bespoke carbon reducing scenarios that are geographically situated. The work shows the value of a neighbourhood-based approach to energy management using UBEMs.