Conference Paper
Proceedings of SimBuild Conference 2024
An Open-Source Decarbonization Analytics Framework: Designing for Low-Carbon Emission Districts and Communities
An Open-Source Decarbonization Analytics Framework: Designing for Low-Carbon Emission Districts and Communities
Rawad El Kontar 1,2, Cindy Huynh 2, Ben Polly 1, Nicholas Long 1, Jing Wang 1, Xin Jin 1, Tarek Rakha 21 National Renewable Energy Laboratory, US 2 Georgia Institute of Technology, USAbstract: This paper introduces an open-source analytics framework designed to assist in creating low or net-zero carbon buildings and urban districts. Integrated with URBANopt™, an open-source platform for energy analysis in districts and communities, this framework equips researchers, architects, engineers, and other stakeholders with the necessary tools to evaluate the carbon footprint implications of their design choices.This paper introduces an open-source analytics framework that enables users to design for low or net-zero carbon buildings and urban districts. The framework provides researchers, architects, engineers, and other stakeholders with the tools necessary to understand the impact of their design decisions on buildings’ carbon footprints.The framework enables the analysis of various scenarios, incorporating both historical and future emission factors, and can span across different climate zones, each with distinct grid and emissions characteristics. We enable the analysis of different scenarios that reflect historical or future scenario emission factors and span across different communities with unique grid and emissions characteristics. The results demonstrate how users can evaluate the impact of design upgrades and controls strategies in the building/community systems and analyze their effects on carbon-emissions at a district-scale.The results showcase the framework's capability to evaluate the impact of design upgrades and control strategies on carbon emissions in district/community buildings. An analysis using a hypothetical district in Denver, Colorado, showed reduced emissions from energy efficiency upgrades and control strategies, highlighting the sensitivity in their effects on emissions and energy use. Keywords: Carbon Emissions, Decarbonization, District Energy ModelingPages: 76 - 87 Paper: