Estimating spatial and temporal patterns of urban building anthropogenic heat using a bottom-up city building heat emission model

Anthropogenic heat (AH) emission from buildings is a key contributor to the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Although an improved understanding of spatiotemporal patterns of building AH is highly needed for mitigating UHI effect, such information is still limited in high spatiotemporal resolutions at the city level. In this study, a bottom-up city building heat emission model (CityBHEM) was developed to investigate temporal variations of building AH from three components (i.e., envelope convection, zone infiltration and exfiltration, and HVAC system) for all buildings in Boston, United States. First, buildings in Boston were grouped into eleven commercial and five residential building prototypes based on building type, construction year, and foundation type. Second, an end-use-based calibration was developed to calibrate CityBHEM using U.S. Energy Information Administration's survey data. Finally, AH from all buildings in the city under actual weather conditions was calculated using the calibrated CityBHEM model together with building types and sizes. Results indicate that total building AH density of Back Bay neighborhood reaches the maximum value of 526 kWh/m(2) in summer (56% of HVAC system and 44% of envelope convection) and the minimum value of 369 kWh/m(2) in winter (54% of HVAC system, 24% of envelope convection and 22% of zone infiltration and exfiltration). In contrast, total building AH density of suburban neighborhoods is lower than 30 kWh/m(2) in summer and 20 kWh/m(2) in winter. Given that key inputs are publicly available, CityBHEM is transferable to other U.S. cities, enabling us to explore practical building energy-saving strategies for mitigating AH.

Automated summary

The study developed a bottom-up city building heat emission model to investigate temporal variations of building anthropogenic heat in all buildings in Boston.