Current Research Focus
1) Building Energy Efficiency: Design and Operations
With the rapidly expanding construction sector, and India's goal to have 100 smart cities by 2023, there is a pressing need for building energy efficiency solutions. In India, the building sector (including residential and commercial properties) currently accounts for 32.6% of total electricity consumption, which is expected to rise dramatically in the coming years. To ensure a sustainable and decarbonized future, it's crucial to improve energy efficiency and decrease the carbon footprint of buildings.
The Center is currently conducting research on the following topics in the area of Building Efficiency:
· Neighborhood Planning and Distributed Generation: Exploring innovative urban planning strategies that incorporate energy-efficient design, as well as opportunities for distributed energy generation.
· Building Envelope Optimization: Focusing on strategies to improve building envelope efficiency, including the use of cool surfaces, passive design techniques, and external movable shades.
· Energy-Efficient Equipment: Investigating the use of smart devices and energy harvesting technologies to increase building energy efficiency.
· Human Interaction and Environmental Control: Examining the impact of human behavior on building energy consumption and developing personal environment control systems to improve energy efficiency.
· Smart Automation and Load Monitoring: Developing non-intrusive load monitoring systems and forecasting tools to manage energy demand and improve building automation.
· Renewable Energy Integration: Studying the integration of renewable energy sources into buildings, including building-integrated photovoltaics, wind generation, and semi-transparent photovoltaics.
· Energy Storage Solutions: Evaluating the use of battery storage and thermal storage systems to improve building energy efficiency and reliability.
· Policy and Regulation: Analyzing current policies and regulations surrounding building energy efficiency, such as the Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC), Eco Niwas Samhita (ENS), and the Green Building Code, to identify opportunities for updating and implementation.
2) Study and Mitigation of Urban Heat Island
Urban Heat Islands (UHI) are urban areas that experience higher temperatures than surrounding rural areas due to human activities. This is caused by the replacement of natural cover with heat-retaining materials in construction, and increased heat emissions in urban areas. UHI can raise temperatures by 1°C in smaller cities and up to 12°C in large metropolitans. The increased temperature can cause a variety of problems:
a. Increased human mortality: Prolonged exposure to high temperatures and humidity levels can cause human bodies to overheat and suffer multiple organ failures. UHI and global warming combined can make sustained wet bulb temperatures of 35°C possible, putting entire cities at risk of heatwaves.
b. Compromised health and comfort: UHI contributes to higher daytime temperatures, reduced night-time cooling, and higher air-pollution levels. This can lead to heat-related deaths, illnesses, and general discomfort, as well as exacerbating naturally occurring heatwaves.
c. Increased energy consumption and emissions: UHI leads to higher demand for indoor cooling, which increases energy consumption and the use of fossil-fuel power plants. This results in higher emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases, causing harm to human health and contributing to climate change.
The following research activities are being undertaken at the Center to understand and tackle the effects of Urban Heat Island:
· Visualizing the Impact of Urban Heat Islands (UHI): District level simulations play a crucial role in assessing the impact of UHI on urban areas. By comparing temperatures in cities with surrounding rural areas, these simulations provide insights into the effects of human activities on urban temperatures. Data collected from actual temperature measurements and satellite weather data is utilized in these simulations. The findings from these simulations help identify specific research problems and formulate targeted solutions.
· Microclimate Studies: Physical simulations of heat entrapment, pollution dispersion, and other relevant phenomena are conducted in a microclimate laboratory. These simulations help study the impact of UHI on varying scales.
· Mitigating the Effects of UHI: Efforts are being made to develop and analyze solutions to mitigate the impacts of UHI. Strategies include implementing cool roofs, passive design modifications to reduce energy consumption in buildings, town planning to minimize UHI effects in large cities, vertical gardening, and identifying the best materials for building envelopes and pavements, such as retroreflectors.
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