Two-Stage Multi-Objective Meta-Heuristics for Environmental and Cost-Optimal Energy Refurbishment at District Level

Diana Manjarres, Lara Mabe, Xabat Oregi and Itziar Landa-Torres
Additional contact information
Diana Manjarres: Tecnalia Research and Innovation, Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia, 48160 Derio, Spain
Lara Mabe: Tecnalia Research and Innovation, Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia, 48160 Derio, Spain
Xabat Oregi: Architecture Department, University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), 20018 Donostia, Spain
Itziar Landa-Torres: Petronor Innovación S.L, 48550 Muskiz, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 5, 1-24

Abstract: Energy efficiency and environmental performance optimization at the district level are following an upward trend mostly triggered by minimizing the Global Warming Potential (GWP) to 20% by 2020 and 40% by 2030 settled by the European Union (EU) compared with 1990 levels. This paper advances over the state of the art by proposing two novel multi-objective algorithms, named Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) and Multi-Objective Harmony Search (MOHS), aimed at achieving cost-effective energy refurbishment scenarios and allowing at district level the decision-making procedure. This challenge is not trivial since the optimisation process must provide feasible solutions for a simultaneous environmental and economic assessment at district scale taking into consideration highly demanding real-based constraints regarding district and buildings’ specific requirements. Consequently, in this paper, a two-stage optimization methodology is proposed in order to reduce the energy demand and fossil fuel consumption with an affordable investment cost at building level and minimize the total payback time while minimizing the GWP at district level. Aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed two-stage multi-objective approaches, this work presents simulation results at two real district case studies in Donostia-San Sebastian (Spain) for which up to a 30% of reduction of GWP at district level is obtained for a Payback Time (PT) of 2–3 years.

Keywords: energy; environmental; global warming potential; district refurbishment; multi-objective; optimization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/5/1495/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/5/1495/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:5:p:1495-:d:213126

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().