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Runming Yao, Ph.D., School of th Built Environment, University of Reading
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Mehdi Shahrestani, Ph.D., School of Construction Management and Engineering, University of Reading
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Baizhan Li, Ph.D., Chongqing University
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Xinyi Li, Chongqing University
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Shiyu Han, School of Construction Management and Engineering, University of Reading
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Buildings account for 40% of CO2 emissions in the UK and around 25% in China. In an attempt to mitigate global warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the UK Government is committed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80% below the 1990’s level by 2050; China pledged a 40–45% decrease in CO2 emissions per GDP by 2020 against 2005 levels. To achieve these targets, building retrofitting is one of the efficient ways to improve building energy efficiency and the associated CO2 emissions. In order to evaluate the potential energy savings that can be achieved through building retrofit plans, this study aims to assess two levels of deep retrofit in a typical office building. These retrofit scenarios are assessed using numerical simulation of a prototypical building in five climate zones in china as well as London and Aberdeen in the UK. Numerical simulations have been conducted using the EnergyPlus software. The outcomes of this study reveal that deep retrofit in office buildings can potentially achieve up to 54% energy saving compared with the energy consumption of buildings designed in 1980(s). However, economic factors should be also considered in the process of decision making to choose the most appropriate building retrofit strategy.
