A Multi-objective Optimization Framework for Sustainable Retrofit of Indian Buildings: Fid-Bau Portal

A Multi-objective Optimization Framework for Sustainable Retrofit of Indian Buildings

Jain, Harshit / Thomas, Albert / Rajput, Tripti Singh

The energy efficiency of an existing building is a major concern for ensuring sustainability in the building sector, and repairs and retrofitting are the major options that are currently being followed to enhance the energy performance. To get an optimal choice of building materials and getting a feasible decision on various retrofitting activities within the given cost and energy constraints, the Multi-objective optimization technique (MOO) is implemented in the building energy science domain. It gives an optimal solution between cost and energy criteria that helps the decision-makers to take balanced and feasible decisions for the selection of building materials and improving building energy performances. However, while doing repairs and retrofit of the building, minimizing the retrofitting cost as well as minimizing the energy consumption is a challenging part to achieve. This paper focuses on the optimization of retrofitting works on an existing residential building under Indian conditions in which the MOO technique is implemented to get feasible decisions both in terms of cost and energy savings. The Genetic Algorithm (GA) based optimization method is used to perform optimization on two objective functions. Based on various budget constraint equations, the Pareto optimal solutions set is obtained between the overall retrofitting cost and embodied energy of materials used in retrofitting. This helped as a decision-supporting tool to get the optimal choice of energy saving construction materials and to take feasible decisions for both material cost and energy. This study helps the decision-makers in achieving economic feasibility as well as improving building energy performance which is essential for sustainable buildings.