2022-12-22, Dürr, Jonas, Geissler, Achim, Hoffmann, Caroline

An enormous range of building materials that is almost impossible to keep track of is available. The trend toward building densification in cities continues apace. Coupled with climate change, a situation is emerging that poses ecological as well as economic risks in terms of living comfort in public, urban spaces. Building designers need help (tools) to be able to address a wide range of requirements within their planning. The development of the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) model BASK (engl. “Construction Materials for Cities in Climate Change”) is presented. The goal of the model is to assist building designers in determining surface materials for wall, ground and roof construction and help determine the best compromise between environmental, economic, and building practice criteria. Currently available criteria are heat stress, visual reflectance, CO equivalents, electricity production, retrofitability, sound absorption, construction costs, and life span. The criteria can be weighted by the designer, resulting in a customized ranking of construction systems that best meets the designer’s prioritized criteria. The design of BASK basically allows for an extension of the criteria. The version of BASK described in this paper includes 10 construction systems covering a wide range of construction types focused on walls. The tool requires technical data for materials considered in construction systems included, which are made available via a data base. The scope of construction systems can also be extended in the future. Based on the restricted set of construction systems the results of a sensitivity analysis and initial validation are given.

2020-10-01, Hall, Monika, Geissler, Achim

Increasing numbers of photovoltaic systems and heat pumps in existing building clusters can lead to an overload of the associated substations of the electric grid. Based on a multi-agent-based simulation of three building cluster types the impact of building flexibility in regard to the residual substation load is studied. Each building announces its available flexibility, e.g. “heat pump can be switched off/on”. A cluster master coordinator evaluates the incoming offers and decides which offers are accepted in regard to the substation’s capacity utilization. The goal is to honour the substation’s limit by shifting the residual load. This paper presents results from three typical urban building clusters for different penetration scenarios in regard to heat pumps, photovoltaic systems, batteries and electric vehicles. It is shown that in the studied building clusters a high penetration of heat pumps and photovoltaic systems can violate the existing substation’s limits, regardless of the efforts by the master coordinator. Batteries of typical capacities cannot reduce the peak residual load. The load shifting options of the master coordinator are limited.

2019-11-21, Hall, Monika, Geissler, Achim, Wache, Holger

With the increasing number of photovoltaic systems and heat pumps in buildings existing substations of the electric grid could be overloaded. A multi-agent based simulation of a building cluster studies the impact of building flexibility in regard to the residual substation load. Each building announces its available flexibility, e.g. "heat pump can be switched off/on". A master coordinator evaluates all incoming offers and decides which offers are accepted. This reduces the residual load at the substation. This paper presents results from a study of the impact at the substation of a smart urban building cluster with different penetration scenarios of heat pumps, photovoltaic systems, batteries and electric vehicles. It is shown that a high penetration of heat pumps and photovoltaic systems violates the substation's limits for the studied building cluster. Batteries cannot reduce the peak utilization. The master coordinator's load shifting options are limited.