The motivation for the research described in this thesis is the imperative to minimise energy consumption of buildings in the urban environment. A comprehensive approach to analysing energy usage involves the whole life cycle of buildings and infrastructure including embodied energy consumption. Embodied energy represents all of the energy consumed in the production of building materials and components, as well as the energy used to assemble them into the built form. This thesis describes the development and application of a model which spatially depicts embodied energy as a basis for undertaking more holistic analyses of urban energy consumption. The need for comprehensive analyses of energy consumption is initially explored. Such analyses would enable more favourable energy outcomes to be achieved when making decisions about urban planning and development. Research on the value of representing energy usage in a spatial format is reviewed and the case is made for modelling the embodied energy as a contribution to the broader understanding of urban energy consumption. This thesis concentrates on residential areas of the urban environment. The model for spatially representing the embodied energy consumption of residential areas has three components which are embodied energy theory, property register data and geographical information software. A methodology is described which commences with hybrid embodied energy coefficients, integrates these with property register data for a metropolitan area and displays the results using GIS techniques in the form of maps. The model is general but developed using information pertaining to the Adelaide metropolitan area and tested using data from both Adelaide and Sydney. To show that the model can usefully contribute to life cycle energy analyses in the urban environment, it is applied to three case studies involving current urban planning issues involving the densification of dwellings in cities and the redevelopment of older residential areas. These show that such analyses can represent embodied energy spatially and with sufficient accuracy to inform urban planning and development decisions aimed at reducing overall energy usage. In summary, the research has extended knowledge on the embodied energy of the built form by focusing on residential areas which include urban infrastructure rather than just individual buildings. It has provided new insights into the significance of embodied energy of the existing built form by considering it as a ‘sunk cost’ which may be partially recovered and form part of the energy flows in the urban environment. The mapping of embodied energy of the existing built form also offers the potential for quantifying resources which can be re-used to modify total energy consumption of new developments. / http://proxy.library.adelaide.edu.au/login?url= http://library.adelaide.edu.au/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=1311795 / Thesis(Ph.D.) -- University of Adelaide, School of Architecture, Landscape Architecture and Urban Design, 2008
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/264446 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Pullen, Stephen Frederick |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Detected Language | English |
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