Towards a universal and integrated digital representation of physical phenomena: a model to investigate comfort and energy efficiency in future environments

This thesis describes the exploration and the development of computational means to investigate the behaviour of design objects before they are available for investigation in the physical world. The motivation is to inform the design process about the design object's performance in order to achieve better--more performance-oriented--design outcomes in the sense of energy efficiency and comfort performance than can be achieved by conventional design techniques.

Building energy efficiency labeling programme in Singapore

The use of electricity in buildings constitutes around 16% of Singapore's energy demand. In view of the fact that Singapore is an urban city with no rural base, which depends heavily on air-conditioning to cool its buildings all year round, the survival as a nation depends on its ability to excel economically. To incorporate energy efficiency measures is one of the key missions to ensure that the economy is sustainable. The recently launched building energy efficiency labelling programme is such an initiative. Buildings whose energy performance are among the nation's top 25% and maintain a healthy and productive indoor environment as well as uphold a minimum performance for different systems can qualify to attain the Energy Smart Office Label. Detailed methodologies of the labelling process as well as the performance standards are elaborated. The main strengths of this system namely a rigorous benchmarking database and an independent audit conducted by a private accredited Energy Service Company (ESCO) are highlighted. A few buildings were awarded the Energy Smart Office Label during the launching of the programme conducted in December 2005. The labeling of other types of buildings like hotels, schools, hospitals, etc. is ongoing.

Promoting energy efficiency in the private rented sector

The English House Condition Survey for 1991 demonstrated that levels of energy efficiency in private rented property are significantly below other sectors, even though energy improvements have tangible benefits for landlords. The low level of energy efficiency provision in the private rented sector indicates that landlords are unaware or unconvinced of these benefits and market barriers may have restricted uptake. Information regarding energy efficiency advice to the private rented HMO sector has focussed on offering good practice design guidance, and information about the level of fitness and overall characteristics of the sector. This research project evaluated the PRESS scheme, which encouraged landlords to introduce energy efficiency measures. A total of 78 private sector rented properties in Sheffield were analysed with retrofit measures to improve levels of energy efficiency. The results demonstrate that whilst market barriers exist, the PRESS scheme went some way to overcoming some barriers to energy efficiency.

Energy efficiency methods in electrified railways based on recovery of regenerated power

Various attempts have been made to minimise energy consumption of rail vehicles by means of regenerative power from electric braking of traction motors. This paper describes energy efficiency methods in electrified railways based on recovery of energy. Direct recovery methods that return regenerative power to electrified networks, and recovery methods based on energy storage systems are elaborated. The benefits of developing recovery methods and advantages of energy storage systems are discussed.

Energy efficiency rating systems for housing : an Australian perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine current trends in energy efficiency ratings and consider their likely impact on the Australian housing market.

Design/methodology/approach – The research is yet to be conducted; however a mixed method is proposed which is grounded on the theoretical model of consumer behaviour within housing markets. This model has been tested and demonstrated to be useful in predicting buyer behaviour.

Findings – Established theories of buyer perception indicate the introduction of energy efficiency rating systems will have an effect on the level of house prices.

Research limitations/implications – This research is focussed on housing in Australia but also has implications for other global housing markets which are addressing sustainability.

Practical implications – Outputs of this research have implications for policy makers, real estate agents and valuers.

Social implications – Increasing energy costs is likely to restructure the way housing markets operate with regard to sustainability and energy efficiency rating systems and also how they are understood.

Originality/value – This research will be in the Australian context utilising international modeling. As mandatory energy efficiency ratings have not been introduced, this research will be original.

Energy efficiency on location based applications in mobile cloud computing: a survey

The constrained battery power of mobile devices poses a serious impact on user experience. As an increasingly prevalent type of applications in mobile cloud environments, location-based applications (LBAs) present some inherent limitations concerning energy. For example, the Global Positioning System based positioning mechanism is well-known for its extremely power-hungry attribute. Due to the severity of the issue, considerable researches have focused on energy-efficient locating sensing mechanism in the last a few years. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive survey of recent work on low-power design of LBAs. An overview of LBAs and different locating sensing technologies used today are introduced. Methods for energy saving with existing locating technologies are investigated. Reductions of location updating queries and simplifications of trajectory data are also mentioned. Moreover, we discuss cloud-based schemes in detail which try to develop new energy-efficient locating technologies by leveraging the cloud capabilities of storage, computation and sharing. Finally, we conclude the survey and discuss the future research directions. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Wien.

Energy-efficiency analysis of cluster-based routing protocols in wireless sensor network

This paper extends the conditions of the cluster-based routing protocols in terms of general algorithm complexity of data fusion, general compressing ratio of data fusion, and network area with long distance. Corresponding three general evaluation methods to evaluate the energy efficiency of the cluster-based routing protocols such as LEACH, PEGASIS, and BCDCP are provided. Moreover, three facts are found in them: (1) High-level software energy macro model is used to compute the energy dissipation of general data fusion software and make the constant value of energy dissipation of 1-bit data fusion an especial instance. (2) Multi-hop energy efficiency is related to the radio hardware parameters and the dynamic topology of network and the above protocols do not exploit the best use of the energy efficiency of multi-hop scheme. (3) High-energy dissipation non-cluster-head nodes, whose number changes with the density of the sensor nodes in clusters, worsen the death of nodes. The numerical results of experiments reprove these discoveries. Furthermore, they provide helpful guide for improving the above routing protocols to extent their application ranges.

CH2 energy harvesting systems : economic use and efficiency

This paper looks at the City of Melbourne's new office development CH₂ as a case study of world class energy performance. In particular, the integrated design of conventionally independent systems has led to the potential to deliver significant savings to the Council and to deliver better environmental conditions to building occupants that in turn may contribute to satisfaction, well-being and Productivity. It is concluded that this project has the potential
to be an iconic example of effective implementation of ESD (environmental sustainable design) principles and therefore act as a demonstration project to others. Energy efficiency of more than 50% of current benchmarks for Melbourne is effected. Energy harvesting is defined as arising from squander, waste and nature, which is a new concept introduced in this paper to better describe the design decision process.

Validation of the use of input-output data for embodied energy analysis of the Australian construction industry

This paper evaluates a recently developed hybrid method for the embodied energy analysis of the Australian construction industry. It was found that the truncation associated with process analysis can be up to 80%, whilst the use of input-output analysis alone does not always provide a perfect model for replacing process data. There is also a considerable lack in the quantity and possibly quality of process data currently available. These findings suggest that current best-practice methods are sufficiently accurate for most typical applications, but this is heavily dependant upon data quality and availability. The hybrid method evaluated can be used for the optimisation of embodied energy and for identifying opportunities for improvements in energy efficiency.