Evaluating the impact of operating energy reduction measures on embodied energy
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Buildings are known to consume around 48% of the worlds annual energy in their construction, operation and maintenance causing significant damage to the environment due to the resultant carbon emissions. During their lifecycle, buildings consume energy in the form of embodied energy (EE) and operating energy (OE). In a conventional building, EE accounts for 10-20% of a buildings lifecycle energy (LCE), while OE accounts for 80- 90%. As a result, the building sector has taken several measures to reduce OE consumption in buildings. These OE reducing measures fail to account for the subsequent increase in EE, and might result in increasing the overall buildings LCE. A systematic review of literature shows that, there is limited research that comprehensively evaluates the impact of OE reduction measures on EE for different construction assemblies. Therefore, making the design decision process extremely tedious and complex. This study has created a knowledge base that would inform energy optimization decision-making during the buildings lifecycle. For this, LCE consumption is calculated and evaluated on ASHRAEs 90.1-2016, benchmark model for each OE reducing measure across different commercial building envelope construction assemblies. In future, this knowledge will allow building designers to take an informed step towards reducing overall energy consumption in buildings.
