Exploring the Empirical Relationship Between Urban Form and Building Energy Use

EasyChair Preprint 10944

Abstract

Buildings account for 30% of global energy use and is expected to continuously increase. Urban form is known to have a non-negligible effect on building energy. Past studies focused on modeling physical obstructions and microclimate around buildings. However, large-scale modeling is usually computationally prohibitive. In this paper, we aim to empirically evaluate how urban form affects energy use of residential and commercial buildings in Santa Clara, CA. We combined a large-scale energy dataset with information on building properties and urban environment. We build regression models and analyze the non-linearity and interaction effects. Results show that relationship between density and building energy is non-linear and monthly energy intensity could drop by up to 50%, 18% and 17% for single-family residential, multi-family residential and commercial buildings respectively if we increase density in surrounding areas. These results can assist urban planning and policy-making professionals to make informed decisions regarding land-use and decarbonization goals.

Keyphrases: building energy, density, urban form

@booklet{EasyChair:10944,
  author    = {Chi On Ho and Marco Miotti and Rishee Jain},
  title     = {Exploring the Empirical Relationship Between Urban Form and Building Energy Use},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 10944},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2023}}