Modeling Low Energy Demand Futures for Buildings: Current State and Research Needs

Abstract

Buildings are key in supporting human activities and well-being by providing shelter and other important services to their users. Buildings are, however, also responsible for major energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions during their life cycle. Improving the quality of services provided by buildings while reaching low energy demand (LED) levels is crucial for climate and sustainability targets. Building sector models have become essential tools for decision support on strategies to reduce energy demand and GHG emissions. Yet current models have significant limitations in their ability to assess the transformations required for LED. We review building sector models ranging from the subnational to the global scale to identify best practices and critical gaps in representing transformations toward LED futures. We focus on three key dimensions of intervention (socio-behavioral, infrastructural, and technological), three megatrends (digitalization, sharing economy, and circular economy), and decent living standards. This review recommends the model developments needed to better assess LED transformations in buildings and support decision-making toward sustainability targets.

Towards net-zero emissions in global residential heating and cooling: a global scenario analysis

“…The estimated global mitigation potential for buildings amounts to 8.2 GtCO 2 by 2050, equivalent to 61% of their baseline scenario (Cabeza et al 2022). The assessment of buildings energy e ciency improvements and their mitigation potentials has a broad literature and detailed modelling (Mata et (Francart et al 2018;Kikstra et al 2021) have been more scarcely investigated and mostly represented in a simpli ed way in existing models (Mastrucci et al 2023). These interventions can deliver energy reductions additional to energy e ciency improvements and contribute to covering the full mitigation potential (Cabeza et al 2022).…”

Decoupled Ionic and Electronic Pathways for Enhanced Osmotic Energy Harvesting

“…Energy demand is motivated by urban modernization and continuous global industrialization. , A reasonable strategy for addressing this major challenge is to develop fossil-fuel-independent energy acquisition methods without potential ecological security impacts . Osmotic energy, or salinity-gradient power, is regarded as a sustainable and environment-friendly “blue” energy derived from the spontaneous conversion of Gibbs-free energy into electrical energy owing to the salinity gradient between fresh water and seawater. − Theoretical estimates propose that the global osmotic energy reserves based on rivers and seawater constitute approximately 1.0 TW, surpassing the global solar and wind energy consumption .…”