Research Overture: Powering the City - Urban Energy Demand and Supply with Building Integrated Photovoltaics
Image: Tribune de Paris, Renzo Piano Workshop, by Sergio Grazia
Wednesday 30 June, 20215–6pm (SGT), 11am–12pm (CET)
Registration Link (Eventbrite)
Research Overture
This series of seminars focuses on new research topics being developed at Future Cities Lab (FCL). Each seminar is an opportunity for the team leading the research to articulate their aims and aspirations, as well as the challenges they expect to face. It is also an occasion for participants to help shape the research through dialogue.
Powering the City
Already today, 80% of global primary energy is consumed in urban areas. Transitioning towards renewable energy systems to power future low-carbon cities is crucial to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus limit global warming, as well as increasing liveability in cities. Building Integrated Photovoltaics (BIPV) offer on-site renewable energy generation by augmenting or replacing conventional façade materials. Current developments in technology, aesthetics as well as decreasing costs provide the grounds for massive deployment of BIPV also in urban settings, with implications on urban form, construction and energy systems. This work aims to develop a holistic and multi-scale modeling approach for assessing large-scale deployment of BIPV in urban contexts under different climatic and socio-economic conditions. One of the central challenges of modeling urban energy systems is the correct estimation of people’s movements and activities. The growing availability of large-scale data on human activity can provide new insights into the spatiotemporal distribution of people and their activities within cities, which is important not only for urban planning but also for the design and operation of efficient energy systems.
Presenters
Prof. Dr. Arno Schlüter, Principal Investigator & Chair of Architecture and Building Systems, ETH Zürich
Prof. Dr. Markus Schläpfer, Principal Investigator & Asst. Prof. (Adj.), School of Computer Science and Engineering, NTU