Optimizing the decarbonization of a geographically dispersed building portfolio

• Published in: Building and environment 2024-08, Vol.262, p.111767, Article 111767
• Main Authors: Betz, Trevor, El-Rayes, Khaled, Johnson, Michael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Decarbonization; Greenhouse gas; Optimization
• ISSN: 0360-1323; 1873-684X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2024.111767

Many organizations are actively pursuing decarbonization goals to help mitigate the effects of climate change. This situation often requires capital replacement of building components with different fuel or higher efficiency variants to reduce emissions. However, this problem is complicated when an organization operates across a wide geographic area due to regional differences in weather, utility costs, and electrical grid emissions. This paper develops a framework for this problem by implementing energy, emissions, cost, and decision models that can scale across large organizations. The resulting decisions show the ability to reach decarbonization goals with lower costs and better rates of return. Compared to condition or unit-capacity ranking strategies, case studies show that the developed model reduces emissions by as much as 68.99 % or costs by as much as 47.08 %, depending on organizational goals. •Optimal large-scale decarbonization retrofit decisions when quality data is sparse.•Creating large-scale portfolio energy comparisons with open-source datasets.•Costing model for design alternative replacement costs from equipment capacity.•Decision frameworks to optimize goals like GHG reduction or simple payback.