Optimal Ranking of Retrofit Options for Emissions Reduction in Non-Domestic Bldg

Session 10 Paper 6, CIBSE ASHRAE Technical Symposium, Imperial College, London, UK
18th and 19th April 2012

Measures for reducing emissions in buildings, including renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency measures and inducements to change behaviour are widely available today. In practice, due to financial costs, project timelines and other constraints, their implementation is unlikely to be achieved in a single operation. There is therefore the need for a robust decision-making methodology with which optimal choices can be made regarding the prioritisation of the measures. Such a methodology will take into account multiple and sometimes competitive objectives such as energy consumption, financial costs, environmental impacts and the interactions of measures. This paper, written to support a poster, gives an overview of relevant literature in this field, a proposed research methodology and some thoughts on how measures of financial costs and both embodied and operational emissions can be combined into a robust way. This will allow ranking and sequencing of retrofit options to reduce emissions in non-domestic buildings in a cost-effective manner.