A large Canadian financial services institution (FSI) is planning to develop a web-based application aimed at helping homeowners calculate the financial and environmental impacts of potential energy conserving upgrades to their dwellings. The algorithm for this calculator, the questions to be posed to the homeowners, and how the homeowners can access some of the scientifically-inclined energy-related information is presented. The potential upgrades considered were: furnace efficiency, heat-pump efficiency, programmable thermostats, window-efficiency, building insulation, lighting efficiency, and refrigerator efficiency. The algorithm developed was used to demonstrate that changing just one of the input variables can, in certain cases, have a drastic effect on the resulting output: upgrades with positive net present values (NPV) can drop to negative NPV, and in certain cases CO2 emissions can increase as a result of the upgrade considered. The effect of future changes in fuel prices, and the price levied on CO2 emissions is also demonstrated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/18315 |
| Date | 19 January 2010 |
| Creators | Gupta, Pulkit |
| Contributors | Paradi, Joseph C. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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