UBEM-SER: Role of sufficiency, efficiency and renewable in the decarbonization of commercial building stock at city scale

Abstract

The transitional pathway for decarbonization of commercial building stock requires adequately managing the degree of complexity by providing a coordinated effort with the implementation of non-technological mitigation strategies, energy conservation measures and the use of renewable distributed energy resources (DERs). However, there exist significant challenges in facilitating coordination among different methodological characterizations of building stock interventions. These challenges hinder the ability to reveal the quantitative description of sufficiency, efficiency and renewable DERs in achieving a carbon-neutral building stock. To address this challenge, this paper presents a multi-model framework to integrate an urban building energy model (UBEM), that supports the consideration of energy conservation and socio-behavioural effects, with a physical-based approach of BIPV potential estimation to estimate energy demand and supply patterns of commercial building stock at the city scale. A scenario-based simulation procedure is constructed to explore the degree of variability of sufficiency and efficiency dimensions in decarbonization pathways as complementary levers rather than contrasting ones. The analysis of results reveals that: sufficiency provides an additional gain of 15 % to reduce the annual median value of energy use intensity (EUI); 60 % reduction in energy demand is observed with larger energy savings originating from efficiency measures accounting for 46 % reduction potential; and sufficiency supports wider decarbonization with reduction of peak load by 18 % and improvement of self-sufficiency (SS) by 20 % with longer duration of negative net load. Overall, this study provides a context-based perspective of energy conservation and socio-behavioural effects to energy modelers and policymakers for achieving broader decarbonization of commercial building stock at the city scale.