Category: yizhi

Latest Study Dives Into the Complex Interplay of Electrification and Energy Efficient Retrofits (EER)

Nathan Kurtz on

As part of SBS Lab’s joint US-Ireland R&D Project led by Yizhi Yang, Rosina Adhikari, Yingli Lou, and Wangda Zuo from Pennsylvania State University, James O’Donnell from University College Dublin, and Neil Hewitt from Ulster University a new study has been posted. Given that the U.S. residential sector accounts for 56% of operational carbon emissions from buildings, the decarbonization efforts in this sector are critical for net-zero carbon goals. Our study titled “Long-Term Impact of Electrification and Retrofits of U.S. Residential Buildings in Diverse Locations” investigates the complexities of electrification and energy efficient retrofits (EER) across varying climates and dynamic grid clean energy penetrations.

Some of the key insights from this study include:

  • Electrification has the potential to significantly reduce long-term emissions as clean energy adoption increases.
  • However, decarbonization is not guaranteed due to mismatches between clean energy availability and demand, particularly in heating-dominant climates.
  • Electrification can reduce energy burden and peak demand in cooling-dominant locations, while in colder regions, it increases energy burden (up to 8.24%) and shifts peak demand from summer to winter.
  • Including investment costs, the implicit energy burden in cold climates can rise to 8.35%.
  • For already electrified buildings in Denver and Great Falls, EER measures can shorten payback periods by up to 48.98%.

These insights reveal a tradeoff: while electrification offers superior carbon emission reductions, EER measures better alleviate energy burdens. Policymakers, energy planners, and stakeholders must consider all these dynamics to balance decarbonization with economic impacts on households. Reed more about these findings at this link (Free by February 14, 2025).

SBS Lab Member Yizhi Yang Receives Borda Graduate Scholarship in Honor of Gifford H. Albright

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SBS Lab Member and Ph.D. candidate Yizhi Yang won the Borda Graduate Scholarship in Honor of Gifford H. Albright – Scholarly Excellence in Architectural Engineering. The award notice says “the Architectural Engineering Department recognizes your exceptional ability and promise for significant future achievement in architectural engineering research. Your hard work and dedication is an inspiration to other Graduate Students.” We are so excited to see our lab members winning awards that recognize their hard work and effort in the world of architectural engineering and building energy modeling.

Yizhi’s Ph.D. research attempts to unravel the nexus of energy consumption, carbon emission, and energy equity in buildings. Her research is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Yizhi has also published several journal and conference papers. To learn more about Yizhi and her research, visit here.

Lab Member Yizhi Yang Passes Ph.D. Comprehensive Exam

Nathan Kurtz on

Congratulations to SBS Lab Member Yizhi Yang on passing her Ph.D. comprehensive exam. Her Ph.D. research attempts to unravel the nexus of energy consumption, carbon emission, and energy equity in buildings. Her research is funded by National Science Foundation (NSF) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Yizhi has also published a number of journal and conference papers. to learn more about Yizhi and her research, visit here.

SBS Lab US-Ireland R&D project team at Ulster University

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Last week, Prof. Zuo and Ph.D. student Yizhi Yang attended the joint project meeting at Ulster University. They were able to meet and discuss their joint US-NI-Rol project “Intelligent Data Harvesting for Multi-Scale Building Stock Classification and Energy Performance Prediction.” While the SBS team was in Belfast, Northern Ireland they were able to visit and tour Ulster University’s heat pump facility. The team also met with officers from the Department for the Economy NI to better tune their research to support the policy-making process regarding energy-efficient buildings and renewable energy.

This research project is supported by National Science Foundation (NSF), Department for the Economy NI, and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). The project is a collaborative project with Pennsylvania State University, University College Dublin, and Ulster University. The project aims to reduce residential building energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions across the three jurisdictions. This goal is being achieved by using the expertise in green engineering from the NI team, building modeling and machine learning from the US team, and the information theory of the RoI team. We are thankful for the warm and generous welcome from the Ulster University team and excited to continue working with all parties on this important research project.

 

Prof. Zuo Visits CEPT University

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Prof. Zuo was able to visit Dr. Yash Shukla and Dr. Rajan Rawal at their center at CEPT University. He was able to tour and see their beautiful campus and research facilities including the Global Cooling Prize test facility. Prof. Zuo also gave a seminar about our research on smart cities. We look forward to potentially collaborating in the future to promote high performance buildings around the world.

Prof. Zuo Visits Indian Institute of Technology, Bhilai

Nathan Kurtz on

This past week, Prof. Zuo was able to visit the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bhilai to start working on the NSF-funded US-India research project on energy-efficient healthy buildings. He was able to meet with Director Rajiv Prakash, Professor Pravesh Chandra Shukla, and Dr. Satyajit Gupta. He was also able to tour the facilities and meet many faculty and students. Prof. Zuo also gave a seminar about our research on smart cities. We are looking forward to continued collaboration with the team at IIT.

Yizhi Yang Presents at ASHRAE SCANVAC HVAC Cold Climate Conference

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SBS Lab Ph.D. student Yizhi Yang presented at the ASHRAE SCANVAC HVAC Cold Climate Conference, 2023. She presented on building decarbonization in U.S. cold climates. Her research looks at the carbon emission reductions that can happen from retrofitting existing office buildings in these cold climates. This is a joint research project with former Ph.D. students Yingli Lou and Yunyang Ye.

Biomimicry Literature Review Published

Julia Ho on

Katy Hinkelman, an SBS Lab PhD candidate, is in the midst of an impressive research project that integrates biomimicry into district energy design and operation. For those of us less versed in such topics, biomimicry is a growing technique defined by the Biomimicry Institute as “a practice that learns from and mimics the strategies found in nature to solve human design challenges.” As part of said research, Katy wrote a recently published literature review on the prevalence of biomimicry research in engineering applications with fellow labmate Yizhi Yang. The review systematically sifts through papers related to biomimicry and bins their biomimetic case studies into physical systems, cyber systems, or cyber-physical systems. In this way, Katy clearly lays out trends in biomimetic research by field and research goal and provides a comprehensive reference for engineers interested in biomimetic research practices that have previously been intimidated by the lack of pertinent, accessible literature.

This literature review has been published in the journal of Bioinspiration and Biomimetics and is open access here.

See Katy’s and Professor Wangda Zuo’s related LinkedIn posts here.

SBS Lab Members’ Novel Method to Assess Carbon Reduction Potential of Buildings Published

Julia Ho on

Yizhi Yang, Yingli Lou, Chris Payne, and Yunyang He have developed a model to “comprehensively assess the long-term carbon intensity reduction potential of aggregated commercial buildings on a county-by-county basis in the continental U.S.” Yizhi Yang is a current PhD student in the SBS Lab, and Yingli Lou and Yunyang He are lab graduates. Their paper summarizing the model and its application to U.S. K-12 buildings has been published in the Energy and Buildings Journal and is available for free until March 11, 2023.

Their case study weighed the effects of climate, energy sources, and building retrofits on K-12 buildings in 14 different climate zones from 2022 to 2050. By considering these effects simultaneously, they were able to predict what retrofits would be most effective and when; for example, they predicted that in 2022 reducing lighting power density in Oregon schools would most effectively increase energy savings, but in 2050 improving roof insulation will be a more effective energy saver because Oregon will have transitioned to clean energy sources for the majority of their electricity. They also concluded that there was a wide range of energy-saving potential across schools and that, depending on the primary energy source, energy savings potentials are not guaranteed to decrease (the example of this phenomenon being Mississippi’s predicted 2044 nuclear plant shutdown, which might be replaced with coal and natural gas plants.)

This case study demonstrates the capabilities of the author’s model, which can help policymakers, engineers, and community members estimate the impacts of different retrofits on buildings in their communities. Future work includes considering future weather predictions in the model, potential policies such as a carbon tax, and increasing the accuracy of buildings estimated in the model with building codes and climate zone geometrical information for climate reduction.

You can read the paper here: https://lnkd.in/efqdSVTr

Mayor of Makassar Interviewed about Smart Garden Alley Project

Julia Ho on

During his visit to Washington DC this summer as part of the US-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership, Makassar City Mayor Mohammad Ramdhan Pomanto gave an interview about the Smart Garden Alley project, a collaboration between the city and SBS Lab researchers Katy Hinkelman, Yingli Lou, and Yizhi Yang. Mayor Pomanto explained the motives behind the smart garden alley project, its goals to promote sustainability and urban farming, and the benefits it has had on local residents. The SBS Lab is working with Mayor Pomanto and the city to make these garden alleys “smart” through collecting data from sensor networks to inform urban farming practices and increase comfort in garden alleys. To watch the interview, click here.

Related: Penn State’s article about the mayor’s visit.