Embodied exergy-based assessment of energy and resource consumption of buildings

As an effective approach to achieve a more unified and scientific assessment, embodied exergy-based analysis is devised to assess the energy and resource consumption of buildings. A systematic accounting of the landmark buildings in E-town, Beijing is performed, on the basis of raw project data in the Bill of Quantities (BOQ) and the most recent embodied exergy intensities for the Chinese economy in 2007 with 135 industrial sectors. The embodied exergy of the engineering structure of the case buildings is quantified as 4.95E + 14 J, corresponding to an intensity of 8.25E + 09 J/m2 floor area. Total exergy of 51.9% and 28.8% are embodied in the steel and concrete inputs, respectively, due to the fact that the case buildings are structured of reinforced-concrete. The fossil fuel source (coal, crude oil, and natural gas) is predominant among four categories of natural resources (fossil fuel, biological, mineral, and environmental), accounting for 89.9% of the embodied exergy, with coal as the dominant energy resource (75.5%). The material accounts for 89.5% of the embodied exergy, in contrast to 9.0%, 1.4%, and 0.1% for manpower, energy, and equipment respectively. This result indicates that great attention should be given to the use of various materials vs. their value of their contribution.