Techno-economic analysis and energy modelling as a key enablers for smart energy services and technologies in buildings

Massimiliano Manfren, Benedetto Nastasi, Lamberto Tronchin, Daniele Groppi and Davide Astiaso Garcia

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2021, vol. 150, issue C

Abstract: Smart energy services and technologies are key components of energy transition and decarbonisation strategies for the built environment. On the one hand, the technical potential of the building stock in terms of energy, emissions and cost savings is large and exploited only partially at present. On the other hand, the increasing availability of data generated by smart meters, smart devices, sensors and building management systems can help monitoring, verifying and tracking building energy performance improvements in a transparent way. In particular, energy modelling and data analytics can provide empirically grounded and tested methods to standardize the way energy performance is measured and reported. Further, techno-economic analysis is crucial to ensure the feasibility of innovative business models. For these reasons, this paper aims to address the role of techno-economic analysis and energy modelling as key enablers for next-generation energy services and technologies. In terms of methods, scientific literature selection criteria are derived from previous research and are focused on limitations and bottlenecks to the achievement of innovative business models, which are motivated, at their very basics, by energy, emission and cost savings. Additionally, besides these potential savings, smart energy services and technologies can provide multiple additional benefits such as improved Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and energy flexibility on the demand side, with respect to energy infrastructures. First, the research identifies the key elements that are necessary to integrate and to streamline techno-economic analysis and energy modelling processes. After that, it highlights potential advances in the broad area of energy transitions and decarbonisation of the built environment that can be achieved as an evolution of current practices and processes. Finally, it envisions the creation of “eco-systems” of interacting models for the building sector that share common underlying principles.

Keywords: Smart energy services; Smart energy technologies; Energy transition; Energy performance contracting; Measurement and verification; Energy analytics; Decarbonisation; Built environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032121007711
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:150:y:2021:i:c:s1364032121007711

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2021.111490

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().