Urban Building Energy Modeling to Support Climate-Sensitive Planning in the Suburban Areas of Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Greenhouse gas emissions depend on natural and anthropic phenomena; however, to reduce emissions, we can only intervene in terms of anthropic causes. Human activity is very different in various countries and cities. This is mainly due to differences in the type of urban environment, climatic conditions, socioeconomic context, government stability, and other aspects. Urban building energy modeling (UBEM), with a GIS-based approach, allows the evaluation of all the specific characteristics of buildings, population, and urban context that can describe energy use and its spatial distribution within a city. In this paper, a UBEM is developed using the characteristics and consumption of eight typical buildings (archetypes) in the climate zone of Santiago de Chile. The archetype-based UBEM is then applied to the commune of Renca, a critical suburb of Santiago, with the use of QGIS to analyze the energy demand for space heating and the potential for energy saving after four retrofitting interventions. Knowing the costs of the retrofitting interventions and the energy price, the simple payback time was evaluated with the reduction in GHG emissions. Starting from the actual building stock, the results show that the most effective retrofitting intervention for the commune of Renca is the thermal insulation of walls and roofs; due to the type of dwellings, this particular intervention could be more convenient if associated with the installation of solar technologies. This methodology can be replicated with the data used by urban planners and public administrations available for many Chilean cities and in other countries.

A Roof Refurbishment Strategy to Improve the Sustainability of Building Stock: A Case Study

“…The classification per construction period is summarized in Figure 6b, while Figure 6c depicts the identified roof types, which were sloped roofs, non-walkable flat roofs, walkable flat roofs and inner courtyards. Urban building energy modeling is assisted by Geographical Information System (GIS) maps to easily represent data in the territory [30]. Table 4 shows the distribution of areas per roof type, building typology (Sf-single-family; Mf-multifamily) and construction period.…”

A GIS-Based Top-Down Approach to Support Energy Retrofitting for Smart Urban Neighborhoods

“…The GIS-based model that has been presented and successfully applied on the case study also reciprocates models from other studies. A recent study in Chile applied GIS for climate sensitive planning in Santiago city [48]. The study was able to identify the most appropriate EEM for building types.…”

“…According to [47], sustainability is viewed by the local construction industry as one of the least essential concerns. It is evident from the fact that despite a harsh climate requiring extensive use of air-conditioning, the majority of the buildings lack thermal insulation [48]. Hence, Riyadh city, due to its unsustainable residential sector, presents an ideal case study to test the developed GIS model.…”