Towards a comprehensive life cycle energy analysis framework for residential buildings

Abstract

Current assessments of residential building energy demand focus mainly on operational energy, notably in thermal terms. The embodied energy of buildings and the transport energy consumption of their users are typically overlooked. Recent studies have shown that these two energy demands can represent more than half of the life cycle energy over 50 years. This article presents a framework which takes into account energy requirements at the building scale, i.e. the embodied and operational energy of the building and its refurbishment, and at the city scale, i.e. the embodied energy of nearby infrastructures and the transport energy (direct and indirect) of its users. This framework has been imp..