A Stochastic Hybrid Embodied CO2eq Analysis of Apartment Buildings in Ireland
Document Type Working Paper
The paper has been presented at Dublin Energy Lab as part of its Seminar Series
Abstract
It is well recognized that operational energy analysis has dominated building energy research for many years when compared to embodied energy analysis. It has been shown however that the energy embodied in buildings is significant when compared to its operational energy use. The development of embodied CO2eq analysis has progressed significantly in recent years has become a mainstream practice in many industries as evidenced by the development of the ISO 14040 and 14044 Life Cycle Assessment standards. However, it is recognized that due to weaknesses in gathering data on product-related energy use and emissions, embodied energy values are probabilistic. The paper therefore presents a stochastic method of deriving the embodied CO2eq in buildings to account for this weakness. Using seven apartment buildings, 70,000 results are simulated and used to derive probabilistic and cumulative distributions for the embodied CO2eq in apartment buildings in Ireland. The stochastic analysis helps to establish the relationship between embodied CO2eq of apartment buildings and the likelihood of obtaining a particular embodied CO2eq value across the apartment building sector and the comparative embodied CO2eq performance between apartment buildings