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Integrated Renewable Energy Infrastructure - Challenges And Opportunities

Authors:
Mirek Piechowski
Anila Weerakkody

Keywords: Reknewable energy; district energy; sustainable precincts; green building; rating schemes

Abstract:
Traditional approach to the sustainable built environment focuses on the passive design and energy efficient heating and cooling technologies. Most of the green building rating systems reward buildings with integrated renewable energy power generation, such as building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) or wind power. Experience indicates that while such initiatives can be justified by achieving the desired rating outcome or a demonstration of the owner’s commitment to sustainability, rarely they can be justified from the commercial point of view. In many cases such initiatives begin to be seen as a cynical attempt at scoring points rather than demonstrating efficient design or environmental sustainability. While renewable energy generation is undoubtedly the right way for the future, the commercially viable strategies for integrating them with the built environment receive much less attention. It seems that the renewable energy sector and the built environment sector have not yet developed a framework for the integration of the two, both on the technical, commercial and legal levels. Smart grids can provide partial solution to such integration. The proposed renewable energy infrastructure consists of the distributed sources of renewable, or low emissions, power generation and also include thermal storage component designed to offset adverse effect of thermal, and electrical, demand fluctuations of buildings due to ambient temperature variations. The paper provides examples of integration of GeoExchange infrastructure with different sources of distributed, renewable energy generation. The paper also discusses some of the key commercial and technical challenges related to the integrated renewable energy infrastructure. The paper discusses some of the opportunities and challenges of integrated approach to the development of precinct scale sustainable built environment and its supporting renewable energy infrastructure. It also proposes a two-tier sustainability rating system which aims to encourage integration of renewable energy resources with urban design.

Pages: 52 to 57

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2011

Publication date: May 22, 2011

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-412X

ISBN: 978-1-61208-136-6

Location: Venice/Mestre, Italy

Dates: from May 22, 2011 to May 27, 2011