A Multi-Facet Retrofit Approach to Improve Energy Efficiency of Existing Class of Single-Family Residential Buildings in Hot-Humid Climate Zones

Abstract

Targeting existing residential buildings for retrofit improvement presents significant prospects for global reduction of energy-usage and carbon footprints. Energy consumption of the existing single-family building in the hot-humid climate zone needs to be targeted for improvement due to their potential energy-savings and sizeable market share. This paper proposes and evaluates energy savings and cost-effectiveness of a whole building retrofit package for single-family residential buildings built between 1950 and 1970. The study outlined a survey conducted using the clustering data mining technique on Florida Single-Family Residential (SFR) homes to determine the essence of the building envelope, patterns of construction, and Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems. The evaluation of the energy efficiency measures (EEMs) effectiveness is performed utilizing Autodesk Revit and a Six-Step modeled framework. This framework consists of baseline model development, validation of the model with an actual case study building, identification of potential EMMs, evaluation of EEMs individually and incorporating the selected EMMs into retrofit package and maximizing the energy-saving and cost-effectiveness of the proposed retrofit package. The study develops proposed retrofit improvement package detailing replacement & improvement EEMs, implementation cost, annual energy savings (kWh), cost-saving ($), and payback period (years) for each individual EEM as well as the combined/total energy improvement package. The paper further explored the usage of solar photovoltaics (PV) energy generation options to offset the remaining energy-use after the implementation of the proposed retrofit package.

Thermoelectric-Based Radiant Cooling Systems: An Experimental and Numerical Investigation of Thermal Comfort

“…This has led to an increase in carbon footprint emissions, resulting in the distribution of pollutants and contributing to ozone layer depletion [1]. Over the past few decades, many efforts have been put into developing energy-efficient technologies [2][3][4] as well as increasing the share of renewable energies in different sectors [5,6]. It is known that buildings are a major energy consumer sector in the US [7].…”

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