In this image of Cambridge, Massachusetts, the colors represent which buildings could be retrofitted to obtain different percentages of total energy savings. Converting just red and orange buildings would achieve 40 percent of the total potential energy savings in the city from efficiency improvements. West Cambridge has a dividing line that shows efficient, dense housing next to a several homes that could use a retrofit. This might be because that neighborhood was built at a different time, or because the homes there are larger.
Many programs encourage owners of homes and other buildings to improve their energy efficiency, sometimes offering substantial subsidies or tax incentives for doing so. Now, planners may have a way to determine where such programs can get the most return for that investment: New research shows how to identify the buildings where retrofitting for energy efficiency will have the biggest impact on a city's overall greenhouse gas emissions. The new findings, which require only minimal information about the buildings and their energy use, was developed by Marta González and Franz-Josef Ulm, MIT professors of civil and environmental engineering; Mohammad Javad Abdolhosseini Qomi PhD '15, who was graduate student when the research was conducted; and five others at MIT and other institutions. The results are being reported in the journal Interface , published by the Royal Society in the U.K. The authors point out that 44 percent of all energy used in buildings in the United States goes toward heating and cooling, and this accounts for 20 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide emissions. So, making a significant dent in that sector could help the country meet its commitments for curbing greenhouse gas emissions. But not all housing is created equal, and making retrofits in some of the least efficient buildings could have a much bigger impact on emissions than fixing up buildings that already perform relatively well. Figuring out how to identify the buildings most in need of improvement, however, at a scale useful for city officials and utility companies, is not a simple task.
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