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Life-Cycle Assessment of Energy Storage in Building Applications

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Energy Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2021) | Viewed by 12191

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Luisa F. Cabeza

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Guest Editor

GREA Innovació Concurrent, Universitat de Lleida, Pere de Cabrera s/n, 25001 Lleida, Spain
Interests: thermal energy storage; building; energy efficiency; renewable energy; social acceptance of technologies; climate change mitigation
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Emiliano Borri

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Guest Editor

GREiA Research Group, Universitat de Lleida, Pere de Cabrera s/n, 25001 Lleida, Spain
Interests: energy storage; thermal energy storage; energy efficiency; cooling and heat transfer
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Gabriel Zsembinszki

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Guest Editor

GREiA Research Group, Universitat de Lleida, 25001 Lleida, Spain
Interests: thermal energy storge; heat transfer; energy efficiency; refrigeration; numerical simulations
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The building sector is responsible of more than 30% of global energy consumption, accounting the 30% of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. The continuous increase of energy demand has led to a transaction in the building sector and the introduction of policies that require a high share of energy produced by renewable sources integrated to high-efficiency buildings. The integration of energy storage, either thermal or electrical, is fundamental to increase efficiency in energy systems integrated to buildings and overcome the problems related to the intermittency of renewables, balancing energy supply and demand.

Although thermodynamic and economic analyses are important to demonstrate the benefit and feasibility of the use of energy storage, sustainability analysis is an important aspect that should be taken into account to have a complete assessment that includes the environmental impact. Life-cycle assessment (LCA) is a suitable approach to quantitatively evaluate the environmental impacts of a certain product or system for its entire life-cycle.

This Special Issue aims to contribute to studying the sustainability, through LCA analysis, of the integration of different energy storage solutions applied to buildings.

In particular, the main topic that this Special Issue should cover are:

LCA of thermal energy storage materials integrated into building envelopes;
LCA of energy systems buildings that integrates thermal energy storage (latent, sensible, thermochemical) and/or electrical energy storage (batteries, fuel-cells, supercapcitors, flywheels, etc.).

Research and reviews articles are therefore invited to be submitted to this Special Issue to contribute to and highlight the sustainable aspect of energy storage technologies.

Prof. Dr. Luisa F. Cabeza
Dr. Emiliano Borri
Dr. Gabriel Zsembinszki
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Life-cycle assessment
Building applications
Energy storage
Thermal energy storage
Sustainability analysis
Environmental impact
Emissions savings

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

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29 pages, 7773 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Targeting Energy Efficiency through Air Conditioning Operational Modes for Residential Buildings in Tropical Climates, Assisted by Solar Energy and Thermal Energy Storage. Case Study Brazil

by Alex Ximenes Naves, Laureano Jiménez Esteller, Assed Naked Haddad and Dieter Boer

Sustainability 2021, 13(22), 12831; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132212831 - 19 Nov 2021

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2498

Abstract

Economy and parsimony in the consumption of energy resources are becoming a part of common sense in practically all countries, although the effective implementation of energy efficiency policies still has a long way to go. The energy demand for residential buildings is one of the most significant energy sinks. We focus our analysis on one of the most energy-consuming systems of residential buildings located in regions of tropical climate, which are cooling systems. We evaluate to which degree the integration of thermal energy storage (TES) and photovoltaic (PV) systems helps to approach an annual net zero energy building (NZEB) configuration, aiming to find a feasible solution in the direction of energy efficiency in buildings. To conduct the simulations, an Energy Efficiency Analysis Framework (EEAF) is proposed. A literature review unveiled a potential knowledge gap about the optimization of the ASHRAE operational modes (full storage load, load leveled, and demand limiting) for air conditioning/TES sets using PV connected to the grid. A hypothetical building was configured with detailed loads and occupation profiles to simulate different configurations of air conditioning associated with TES and a PV array. Using TRNSYS software, a set of scenarios was simulated, and their outputs are analyzed in a life cycle perspective using life cycle costing (LCC). The modeling and simulation of different scenarios allowed for identifying the most economic configurations from a life cycle perspective, within a safe range of operability considering the energy efficiency and consequently the sustainability aspects of the buildings. The EEAF also supports other profiles, such as those in which the occupancy of residential buildings during the day is increased due to significant changes in people’s habits, when working and studying in home office mode, for example. These changes in habits should bring a growing interest in the adoption of solar energy for real-time use in residential buildings. The results can be used as premises for the initial design or planning retrofits of buildings, aiming at the annual net zero energy balance. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Life-Cycle Assessment of Energy Storage in Building Applications)

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22 pages, 3145 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an Innovative Compact Hybrid Electrical-Thermal Storage System for Residential Buildings in Mediterranean Climate

by Gabriel Zsembinszki, Noelia Llantoy, Valeria Palomba, Andrea Frazzica, Mattia Dallapiccola, Federico Trentin and Luisa F. Cabeza

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5322; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13095322 - 10 May 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 3970

Abstract

The buildings sector is one of the least sustainable activities in the world, accounting for around 40% of the total global energy demand. With the aim to reduce the environmental impact of this sector, the use of renewable energy sources coupled with energy storage systems in buildings has been investigated in recent years. Innovative solutions for cooling, heating, and domestic hot water in buildings can contribute to the buildings’ decarbonization by achieving a reduction of building electrical consumption needed to keep comfortable conditions. However, the environmental impact of a new system is not only related to its electrical consumption from the grid, but also to the environmental load produced in the manufacturing and disposal stages of system components. This study investigates the environmental impact of an innovative system proposed for residential buildings in Mediterranean climate through a life cycle assessment. The results show that, due to the complexity of the system, the manufacturing and disposal stages have a high environmental impact, which is not compensated by the reduction of the impact during the operational stage. A parametric study was also performed to investigate the effect of the design of the storage system on the overall system impact. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Life-Cycle Assessment of Energy Storage in Building Applications)

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Review

Jump to: Research

45 pages, 4893 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Environmental Sustainability Approaches and Positive Energy Districts: A Literature Review

by Ilaria Marotta, Francesco Guarino, Sonia Longo and Maurizio Cellura

Sustainability 2021, 13(23), 13063; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su132313063 - 25 Nov 2021

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4427

Abstract

During the last decade, increasing attention has been paid to the emerging concept of Positive Energy Districts (PED) with the aim of pushing the transition to clean energy, but further research efforts are needed to identify design approaches optimized from the point of view of sustainable development. In this context, this literature review is placed, with a specific focus on environmental sustainability within innovative and eco-sustainable districts. The findings show that some sustainability aspects such as sustainable food, urban heat islands mitigation and co-impacts, e.g., green gentrification, are not adequately assessed, while fragmented thinking limits the potential of circularity. In this regard, targeted strategies should be developed. On the other hand, the Key Performance Indicators framework needs some integrations. In this direction, indicators were suggested, among those defined in the Sustainable Development Agenda, the main European standards and initiatives and the relevant literature experiences. Future outlooks should be directed towards: the harmonization of the Life Cycle Assessment in PEDs with reference to modeling assumptions and analysis of multiple impacts; the development of dynamic environmental analyses taking into account the long-term uncertainty due to climate change, data availability and energy decarbonization; the combination of Life Cycle Assessment and Key Performance Indicators based techniques, from a holistic thinking perspective, for a comprehensive design environment and the analysis of the contribution of energy flexibility approaches on the environmental impact of a project. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Life-Cycle Assessment of Energy Storage in Building Applications)

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