What leads to variations in the results of life-cycle energy assessment? An evidence-based framework for residential buildings

Omrany, Hossein; Soebarto, Veronica; Zuo, Jian; Ehsan, Shoaib; Chang, Ruidong

doi:10.1016/j.enbenv.2020.09.005

Cited by 22 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…Despite the limitations considered, the literature review surveys managed to identify 66 LCEA research projects representing 243 case studies in over 15 countries. The findings of the literature review analysis were reported in [23,24]. Thereafter, the approaches of the identified studies to defining system boundary conditions in LCEA research were analysed in depth.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this approach, the total energy performance of a building is quantitatively assessed considering both operational and embodied energies. Embodied energy is the amount of energy consumed at the upstream and downstream stages of the building's life cycle, including production of building materials (known as initial embodied energy), building construction, maintenance and replacement (also known as recurrent embodied energy), end-of-life (EOL) processes, and transportation between any of these steps [23,24,32]. The operational energy refers to the amounts of energy used in the forms of thermal (i.e., heating and cooling) and non-thermal (i.e., domestic hot water (DHW), electrical appliances and equipment, ventilation, lighting, and cooking) energy over the life cycle of a building [23,24,32].…”

Section: An Overview Of Lceamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies have also attested to the key role of system boundary definition in deriving variations and identified multiple reasons for such phenomena, e.g., varied definitions of physical and temporal boundaries; the use of different methods for measuring embodied and operational energies; buildings' geographic locations, data source, and data quality; or manufacturing technology [23,24,27,29,40]. For instance, Moncaster et al [29] identified three major categories that contribute to varying results in embodied energy analysis, namely "temporal differences in the stages considered"; "spatial differences in the material boundaries"; and "physical disparities in the data coefficients".…”

Section: Previous Research On Developing Framework For System Boundariesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Currently, the literature is lacking such a comprehensive framework. This lack is reflected in the findings of recent studies that reported variations in the results of life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) analyses [22][23][24][25][26]. In a recent study, Pan and Teng [26] conducted a holistic literature review analysis of 244 case studies, aiming to quantify potential variations in embodied energy calculations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The results showed that significant variations may stem from the choice of method for embodied energy assessment, i.e., a 200% increase from process-based to hybrid method. In addition, the varied approaches of studies to account for the effects of parameters influencing the assessments of embodied and operational energy can be critical in varying LCEA results [23,24]. For instance, Pan and Teng [26] found that unclear descriptions of system boundaries for including cradle-to-gate and cradle-to-end of construction embodied energy may cause a 9.2% variation in the achieved results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Comprehensive Framework for Standardising System Boundary Definition in Life Cycle Energy Assessments

et al. 2021

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This paper aims to propose a comprehensive framework for a clear description of system boundary conditions in life cycle energy assessment (LCEA) analysis in order to promote the incorporation of embodied energy impacts into building energy-efficiency regulations (BEERs). The proposed framework was developed based on an extensive review of 66 studies representing 243 case studies in over 15 countries. The framework consists of six distinctive dimensions, i.e., temporal, physical, methodological, hypothetical, spatial, and functional. These dimensions encapsulate 15 components collectively. The proposed framework possesses two key characteristics; first, its application facilitates defining the conditions of a system boundary within a transparent context. This consequently leads to increasing reliability of obtained LCEA results for decision-making purposes since any particular conditions (e.g., truncation or assumption) considered in establishing the boundaries of a system under study can be revealed. Second, the use of a framework can also provide a meaningful basis for cross comparing cases within a global context. This characteristic can further result in identifying best practices for the design of buildings with low life cycle energy use performance. Furthermore, this paper applies the proposed framework to analyse the LCEA performance of a case study in Adelaide, Australia. Thereafter, the framework is utilised to cross compare the achieved LCEA results with a case study retrieved from literature in order to demonstrate the framework’s capacity for cross comparison. The results indicate the capability of the framework for maintaining transparency in establishing a system boundary in an LCEA analysis, as well as a standardised basis for cross comparing cases. This study also offers recommendations for policy makers in the building sector to incorporate embodied energy into BEERs.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%