GC21E-08
Modeling Urban
Energy Savings
Scenarios using
Earth System
Microclimate and
Urban Morphology
Melissa Allen, Amy Rose,
Marcia Branstetter,
Jiangye Yuan, Joshua New,
Olufemi Omitaomu, Thomas
Wilbanks
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle
for the US Department of Energy
Microclimate Effects on Energy Use
•  Why build this tool?
–  Neighborhood morphology can make as much as an 83% difference in
energy use in some climate zones
•  What can this tool do for us?
–  Show measured and modeled energy efficiency of various buildings in
selected urban areas for different morphologies under different microclimatic
conditions
–  Project potential energy savings by morphology for climatically distinct US
cities
–  Give implications for different morphologies of future climate and urban
growth scenarios by providing an interactive 3D visualization environment for
testing idealized neighborhood additions (residential and commercial)
•  Integration of several different approaches provides improved
analysis and planning in three research areas:
–  Earth system modeling
–  Climate impacts, adaptation and vulnerability
–  Urban planning and development
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Climate Modeling: Global to Urban Micro
Where are we now?
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Modeling Gaps Addressed with Urban-MET
Spatially
Explicit
•  Population
•  Urban morphology
•  Building level thermal and radiative properties
Micro
Climate
•  Boundary layer heat island, pollution, precipitation
•  Heat Island circulation (wind vectors)
•  Rooftop solar fraction input
•  Full building-level energy modeling
Energy
Population
Projection
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•  Population projections for 2030 and 2050
•  Idealized morphologies for testing new growth
•  Interactive visualization
Solar
Climate
Energy
Urban-MET
Population
Visual-SOLAR Mode
ORNL is managed by UT-Battelle
for the US Department of Energy
MicroClimate
(2m spatial resolution; 2-10s timestep)
1D and 3D Variables Output
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Wind Speed and Direction
Pressure
Temperature
Specific and Relative Humidity
TKE
Dissipation
Long and Shortwave Radiation
Wall and Leaf Temperatures
Stomata Resistance
Sensible and Latent heat fluxes
Water Flux
Surface Albedo
•  Emissions, transport and deposition of selected
atmospheric constituents
http://www.envi-met.info/hg2e/doku.php?id=kb:lbc
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Energy Plus Modeling
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https://energyplus.net/support
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Sensitivity Analysis for Test Morphologies:
Development of Idealized Examples
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Project Urban Morphological Changes for
Future Years
•  Site for residential and commercial
growth using LandCast
methodology
•  Determine neighborhood by
neighborhood the best morphology
to accommodate that new growth
•  Evaluate greenspace options
using unique ORNL capabilities
•  Analysis is high resolution and
spatially explicit
•  Visualization is interactive with
planning and development
professionals
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Future Direction: Earth System/City Interaction
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Backup Slides
Visual-SOLAR Model
Kodysh et al., 2013
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Coupling Building Energy Simulations to Urban
Microclimate and Earth System Models
Buildings, pavement,
vegetation, etc. from LiDAR
and multi-spectral imaging
ENVI-met
Weather data from met
stations, CLMU and/or EPW:
Tair, qair, SWdir, SWdif, IR, Wind
Speed and direction
Modify EPW and
configure
EnergyPlus
Outputs of CHTC for
each linking unit
Outputs of Energy
Plus: Tsurf, Tair, Rlw
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After Yang et al., 2012
Outputs of ENVI-met: Vair,
Tair, qair, Mean Ts, Mean
ground reflectance, Mean
Tree transmittance
Convective Heat
Transfer Calcs
Interactive Visualization