As a popular emission reduction tool, the carbon emission trading scheme (ETS) can potentially add an economic incentive for building owners to retrofit buildings in addition to the cost savings in energy. This study proposed a systematic economic evaluation method to investigate the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits. The reduction of the payback period and the increase of the return on investment are adopted as evaluation metrics. Using medium office buildings as an example, this study predicted the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits at four locations in the U.S. under three different carbon prices. The results show that carbon prices have significant economic impacts on building retrofits. With the relatively low forecasted time-variant carbon prices (around 10 USD per ton), the economic impacts of ETS on building retrofits are small. When carbon prices increase, the impacts of ETS would be up to 25% for 50 USD per ton (current prices in European Union) and 51% for 100 USD per ton.
Dr. Zuo is a Professor in Architectural Engineering and the Associate Director for Research of Global Building Network. Dr. Zuo also holds a joint appointment at the Communities and Urban Science Group at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). He is currently an Associate Editor of Journal of Solar Energy Engineering, Fellow of International Building Performance Simulation Association (IPBSA). He is a major contributor to multiple open-source building and community energy modeling tools, including LBNL’s Modelica Buildings library and NREL’s URBANopt.
Dr. Azari is an associate professor of architecture and director of Resource and Energy Efficiency (RE2) Lab at the Pennsylvania State University. Supported by funds from the industry and the government, Azari’s research centers on modeling of environmental impacts of buildings and cities. With a background in architecture, Azari holds a Ph.D. in Built Environment (Sustainability track) from the University of Washington in Seattle (2013). Azari is a Certified Passive House Consultant (CPHC).
Dr. Jiazhen Ling joined NREL in 2021 and is a research engineer in the Commercial Buildings Research Group within the Building Technologies and Science Center. Dr. Ling's research areas include HVAC modeling, thermal comfort, energy efficiency of appliances, and building- and community-level energy simulations. Prior to joining NREL, Dr. Ling was a research faculty member at the University of Maryland, College Park and was part of the team that was awarded the 2021 Peter Ritter von Rittinger International Heat Pump Award.
A growing majority of the world’s population lives in cities. Urban systems are complex, including interactions between tightly connected human and natural systems both within city boundaries and between cities and the surrounding rural environment. Understanding how cities function is critical to monitoring, managing and improving the urban environment and the environment of the entire globe. The urban environment is also highly heterogeneous, often including striking disparities in the living conditions of and environmental quality experienced by the urban population. Understanding the causes of these disparities, and working towards improving the health, economy and living conditions for disadvantaged populations is a critical challenge in urban systems. The Earth Talks series on Urban Systems Science will bring a series of leading researchers engaged in this increasingly important area of earth, environmental and social sciences research.