Energy performance and environmental quality of typical railway passenger stations in northern China

Abstract

In recent 20 years, the energy performance of public buildings has attracted substantial attention due to the potential for significant energy savings. As semi-open structures, railway passenger stations are noticeably distinct from other public buildings. This paper investigated current energy consumption situation of 36 railway passenger stations in northern China. The energy consumption of the railway passenger stations was divided into high, medium and low levels, with the annual average energy use indexes being 423 kWh/m2, 222 kWh/m2 and 101 kWh/m2, respectively. Heating and cooling are the main energy consumers for major building services. The analysis also established a linear relationship between energy consumption and passenger flow density. However, the linear correlation was not evident where inconsistent operation and management occurred, as was often the case for small and medium sized stations. To further explore, the environmental quality which can reflect the operation and management levels was also tested in eight small- and medium-sized stations. The result showed that stations with high operational and management standards more closely approximated the linear curve and that stations with low standards were further away. Hence, the linear curve would represent the energy consumption levels of railway stations with high standards of operation and management.

Reduction Strategies for Greenhouse Gas Emissions from High-Speed Railway Station Buildings in a Cold Climate Zone of China

“…It should be noticed that the linear relationship between operational GHG emissions and area is not evident, as investigated in [16] the regarding correlation between energy consumption and station area. In energy simulations of this study, energy use from the waiting room accounts approximately for 60% of total energy consumption from all operating rooms.…”

“…Research concentrating on railway station buildings, especially the high speed type, is relatively limited; some of the existing literature takes into account reduction measures for energy consumption that are directly correlated to operational emissions, such as: the relationship between energy consumption and passenger flow density [16]; energy efficiency measures on performance parameters of a building envelope, area ratio of skylight and sun shading mode [17]; energy saving approaches that place greater emphasis on the reduction of air infiltration [18]; triadic relation among lighting comfort level and lighting energy consumption [19]; intelligent control strategies as feasible energy saving solutions [20]; and energy efficient analysis on construction scale, space design, function layout, and operation mode [21,22]. Energy potential in conventional stations or HSRS has been analyzed in different domestic regions.…”

“…The green railway stations rating program of the Indian Green Building Council aims to reduce the adverse environmental impacts due to station operation and maintenance [15]. Despite all of this, earlier studies on railway station buildings mainly focused on energy efficiency [16][17][18][19][20][21][22], indoor thermal comfort [23,24], and ventilation and air quality evaluation [25,26]. Some research discussed the environmental impacts of the railway transport sector, in which railway stations are usually considered as a part of the whole infrastructure.…”

Measurements of Energy Consumption and Environment Quality of High-Speed Railway Stations in China

“…As an important and special branch of public buildings, traffic transportation buildings like railway stations have characteristics of large space span, various functions, high density of people, and long operation time of air conditioning system. Energy consumption and energy-saving approaches of these kind of buildings are also quite different from those of common public buildings [10].…”

“…Energy consumption of traditional railway stations in China is about 101-423 kWh/(m 2 ·a). Calculation results showed that the energy consumption of the HVAC system accounted for 30-60% of the total energy consumption of the station, while the lighting system and the elevator system had a percentage of 10-20% and 5-10% [10,11], respectively. Li et al [12] studied the energy-saving potential and a higher ceiling height will have more obvious chimney effect in winter, which may increase the heating load in winter.…”