1246237 (Kleissl). This is a travel grant for the CBET grantee to attend and present at the CBET Grantee Conference in Baltimore, June 6-8, 2012
The NSF Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems (CBET) Grantee Conference provided the opportunity for building more effective and collaborative relationships amongst the community of CBET grantees and Program Directors. Research results from a CBET CAREER award were shared at the CBET grantee conference which resulted in alerting a wider audience to the research and will facilitate wider distribution of software tools and findings developed under the award. In terms of technical outcomes, we found that the optimization of building energy use in an urban area requires understanding of the complex interaction between urban morphology, materials, and climate, which can have unanticipated effects on urban microclimates and building energy use. Reflective pavements reduce urban air temperatures and have been proposed as a mitigation measure for urban heat islands. However, the increased solar reflectivity also transports more solar radiation into (through windows) and onto adjacent buildings possibly increasing building energy use. The effect of albedo changes in the urban canopy floor surface on building thermal loads is investigated. A case study for a four storey office building with 1820 m2 floor area and 47% window to wall ratio in Phoenix, Arizona was conducted. Increasing pavement solar reflectivity from 0.1 to 0.5 increased annual cooling loads up to 11% (33.1 kWh m-2). The impacts on annual heating loads and canopy air temperatures were small. Policymakers should carefully weigh the benefits and local energy use implications of reflective pavements for each site to ensure their optimal application.
