Simulation model for multi-purpose evaluation of urban energy system

Urban issues to be resolved concerning building energy systems involve not only global warming but also the heat island phenomenon, the planning of urban infrastructures for electricity generation and distribution, and water purification. It is important to find a solution by balancing the impacts of these issues domains with trade-offs in designing building energy systems. In this paper, we propose a simulation model in which not only energy use and CO2 emissions, but also anthropogenic heat release, peak power demand and water consumption are calculated in an integrated, bottom-up manner at the district level. We carried out case studies in order to evaluate measures, such as the large-scale introduction of distributed generators that could change the flow of energy and/or water in the district drastically on the abovementioned simulation outputs. The results of the case studies show that this simulation model can support the design of a suitable solution that balances the issue domains.