A big data modeling framework for evaluating the impact of urban design and constructability on multi-scale city energy usage

Our Motivation:

“In this project, we aim to improve our understanding of how urban design affects city energy consumption across the building and mobility sector, and how these relationships can be modeled effectively. Are there trade-offs between the two sectors and can we avoid them? What is the impact of changes in urban form on energy consumption across different scales, from the block to the city? What do these  findings mean for ‘ideal’ urban design patterns? And how do things change with an increase of vehicle electrification and autonomous or shared mobility?”

Research Contribution

Theoretical: 

A framework that quantitatively links the impacts of different urban planning interventions on building and transportation energy consumption across different scales.

Applied:

Demonstration of the value of a more integrated approach to designing integrated building-mobility-energy systems.

 Problem

Solution

Develop a framework that quantitatively links the impacts of different urban planning interventions on building and transportation energy consumption across different scales.

Added Value For The Industry

Support the quantification of external impacts/gains of proposed construction
and urban development projects for regulatory and public approval

Support the understanding of interactions between large-scale developments and their urban environment in shaping spatio-temporal mobility and energy consumption patterns

Support the prospective modeling of mobility services

Cooperation Partner

Silicon Valley Clean Energy
Company (SVCE), USA

 Timeline

Date	Activity	Outcome
Year 2020	Previous work: Modeling the relationship between the built environment and human mobility patterns
Jan. 2021		Conference Paper: Modeling aggregate human mobility patterns in cities based on the spatial distribution of local infrastructure
Oct. 2021		Completes model (full paper in progress)
Year 2021	Research became awarded: A big modeling framework for evaluating the impact of urban design and constructability on multi-scale city energy usage
	Previous work: Data acquisition of high-resolution building energy data
Aug. 2021	Finalized algorithm, developed in cooperation with Silicon Valley Clean Energy Company (SVCE), to enable them to share building-level energy consumption data at high temporal resolution while protecting customer privacy	Data acquired
Nov. 2021	Start of CIFE Seed Research
Year 2022
Mar. 2022	Extended work on the relationship between the built environment and mobility energy use across scales through a hierarchical, data-driven model based on combining multiple existing dataset in new way	Submitted paper to major journal
Apr. 2022	Initial statistical analysis on SVCE Data	Initial insights on the impact of building and urban design on building energy use from the building scale to the neighborhood scale
Next Steps:	Consolidate insights from mobility and building sectors to integrated framework

If you want to participate in the project please reach out to Marco Miotti (mmiotti@stanford.edu)