Delta announces the release of building microclimate database, adding momentum to energy efficiency in buildings

In early March, Delta Electronics Foundation held a special press conference at Sunshine Theater, packing the room with more than 30 journalists and guests from climate, building and environmental protection sectors, where they witnessed the birth of Taiwan’s first building microclimate database.
 
The term, building microclimate, sounds hard to understand, but why is it attracting so much attention? The reason is that these two topics are closely related to the dilemmas that Taiwan encounters in recent years.

Frequent power shortage news pushes for energy-efficiency in buildings

Power shortage in Taiwan is no longer news in recent years. Having gone through the frightening 2017, Taiwan is flagged with the first “orange alert” (indicates that the current daily reserve capacity is lower than 6%) in February, just before the New Year begins, sending a possible power outage alarm this year. 

Due to consecutive days of cold weather, the peak power usage on the evening of February 5 hit 29,050,000 kW, an orange alert indicating a warning on power supply (the reserve capacity on that day was only 5.08％) was flagged for the first time in February, and Taiwan Power Company immediately applied for the restart of No. 2 nuclear power reactor which had stopped for two years, triggering criticism from environmental and anti-nuclear groups. Many are worried about another 815 massive power blackout.

2017 Taiwan’s power consumption increased by 2.2％, with Residential and Institutional sectors showing a decline (Source: Risk Society and Policy Research Center, National Taiwan University) 

How can summer power outage be prevented in 2018? There are different voices from different groups, with the pro-nuclear group stressing that the problem will be solved by operating the nuclear plants in full power, while the anti-nuclear group suspects Taipower has been falsifying power shortage information over the years, claiming there is no power shortage in Taiwan at all. Unfortunately, amidst the discussions (or war of words), everyone seems to be concerned with finding new energy sources, but forgets the importance of energy-saving.

According to “Review of Taiwan’s 2017 Power Consumption” published by Risk Society and Policy Research Center of National Taiwan University, Taiwan’s power consumption increased by about 2.2% compared to the previous year. The increase is not only higher than the previous year’s (2.1%), but is also higher than the average of past five years (1.4%). However, taking a closer look at changes for the six major power consumption sectors, “Residential” and “Institutional” are the only two that show a decline, providing some level of comfort.

In fact, in Taiwan, a densely populated country with 3/4 of the population concentrating in the urban region, reducing power consumption for buildings is definitely an essential measure. According to the statistics of the Central Weather Bureau, Taiwan’s average temperature increases by 0.7 degree Celsius in the past 100 years, with the average temperature in urban area increasing twice as much (1.4 degree Celsius). During the hot summer, the highly concentrated buildings, congested traffic, urban space with insufficient shading from plants, and inability to dissipate heat from road surface contribute to generation of heat island effect. To escape from the heat, the public either stay home with their air-conditioning on or flock to air-conditioned indoor venues (such as convenience stores, departmental stores, libraries), hence leading to consecutive years of increase in power consumption for buildings (including residential, institutional, services, etc.)

From government statistics, buildings related to “Services” and “Residential” sectors show consecutive years of increase in power consumption(Source: Energy Statistics Handbook 2016, Republic of China)

Climate information helps strengthen capabilities forenergy-efficiency in buildings

Such trend has led to a demand of green building concept which emphasizes energy-efficiency and reduction of carbon emission. However, Delta which has been promoting green buildings over the years, as well as getting involved in the building and usage, discovers that that is a gap between the climate statistics available to Taiwan and actual requirements. Hence, it cooperated with two professional organizations, the Central Weather Bureau and Taiwan Architecture & Building Center last year, in delegating Tai-Jen George Chen, former Vice President of National Taiwan University and lifetime-distinguished professor of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences, as project director. After one year’s of effort, Taiwan’s first building microclimate database is published and made available for access by the public.

If during the design stage for every building, factors such as surrounding environmental features, adapting to local weather condition, and using passive design methods like increasing ventilation, natural lighting, building surrounding green belt , etc. are considered, and together with Building Information Modeling, a tool widely used in global architectural industry in recent years which provides big data and quantitative analysis system for design, construction, building, and subsequent maintenance and management stages for a building, it can reduce design error and resource waste during the construction process, as well as reduce the building’s future power consumption and carbon traces from the source. 

It means that if we are able to get hold of the historical data for a construction site such as sunshine, wind speed, temperature, humidity, rainfall, etc., through BIM simulation and analysis, it would better help architects in building eco-friendly green buildings that are energy-efficient and reduce carbon emission, establishing a comfortable living environment. Green building is no longer a castle in the air, but feasible 
solution close to actual conditions.

In response to extreme climate, the next step is to develop a more accurate information

The recently-released building microclimate database incorporates data from Taiwan’s 13 stations with highest population. In the future, raster data for smaller geographical areas will be developed for link with real-time weather forecast information to provide more useful information on microclimate.

This action is essential. Though the government does provide official statistics at present, additional manpower is required to process them before the climate data can be used in the architectural drawing software and energy analysis system. For example, Taiwan’s weather information provided by US Autodesk website is not recent enough and the locations of the detection stations are not wide enough, resulting in Southern building projects often using information from Northern weather stations when simulating future power consumption. As Taiwan is an island surrounded by sea, situated between the world’s largest continent (Eurasian Continent) and largest ocean (Pacific Ocean) with the Central Mountain Range in the middle, there is huge climate difference in different regions. Also, with the extreme climate in recent years, more accurate and local information should be provided in order to help architects design resilient buildings that adapt to climate.

According to director of Bio-Architecture Formosan, Chang Lien Lin, most people think that Taiwan experiences northeast wind in winter and southwest wind in summer. In fact, climate in the mountains, beach, and every region is different. With more detailed microclimate data, architects can then determine which direction the window should face, precisely calculate window opening ratio, and design wind corridor, increasing the building’s energy-efficiency.

According to government statistics, the total power consumption for Taiwan’s residential and commercial sector (Residential + Services) in 2016 reaches 96.5 billion kW. With a saving of just 5% (about 4.8 billion kW), the power consumption saved would be almost twice of one years’ solar power and wind power generation (2.5 billion kW). In other words, by making the best of weather information, implementing energy-efficiency for buildings and eliminating power shortage crisis in 2018 is not an impossible mission.

The building microclimate database presentation attracted manyjournalists, who also raised questions after the presentation

To improve capability for energy-efficiency in green buildings, weather information will be an indispensable method

Reference / 
1.Risk Society and Policy Research Center of the National Taiwan University (Review of Taiwan’s 2017 power consumption) 
2.Green BIM building microclimate information platform (www.weatherservice.org.tw)
3.Delta Electronics Foundation’s commissioned project, “Application of climate services on green buildings: Establishment of microclimate database for green building information model” (project director: Lifetime-distinguished professor of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at National Taiwan University Tai-Jen George Chen; co-director: manager of Taiwan Architecture & Building Center Li Ming-Hao, CEO of International Climate Development Institute Kung-Yueh Chao; team members: Liu Yi-Ting of Wylin Architects)