PhD position “Buildings’ energy demand at urban scale”

To reach future energy and carbon emission goals, buildings have to become more energy efficient and neighborhoods have to integrate decentralized energy systems from distributed renewable energy sources. The progressive penetration of these distributed power sources and distributed storage devices calls for a new layout and design of the urban energy system.

The project will be part of a greater research effort to introduce the concept of urban energy hubs and developing a simulation environment which allows neighborhoods to convert to decentralized energy systems, reducing their carbon footprint and energy consumption.

The focus of the PhD project lies specifically in the prediction of building energy demand within urban situations in high, medium, and low density areas. In order to evaluate their potential for transformation and the implementation of renewable energy production at building level, a detailed understanding of the current energy situation of the buildings in the neighborhood has to be achieved.

The project will include the evaluation of building energy demand simulation at different scales of complexity including the application of detailed building simulation tools at urban scale, city simulation tools, archetype modeling and clustering approaches, statistical methods, and application and visualization using geographic information systems. Simulation approaches will also incorporate the representation of occupancy behavior patterns at urban scale.  The building performance models developed should act as a basis for the evaluation of various retrofitting scenarios to reach future energy targets. Not only building-level solutions should be taken into account but approaches to address buildings within neighborhoods and cities. The outcome of the PhD should provide a roadmap for such evaluations.