Open AccessSTUDY OF EMBODIED ENERGY IN HEALTHCARE CENTER CONSTRUCTION
Author(s) -
Justo García-Sanz-Calcedo,
Nuno de Sousa Neves,
João Paulo Fernandes
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of civil engineering and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.529
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1822-3605
pISSN - 1392-3730
DOI - 10.3846/jcem.2021.14647
Subject(s) - embodied energy , embodied cognition , energy (signal processing) , project commissioning , multivariate statistics , health care , investment (military) , engineering , computer science , operations management , architectural engineering , statistics , mathematics , economics , physics , publishing , artificial intelligence , thermodynamics , economic growth , politics , political science , law
The tendency to build Net-Zero Energy Buildings increases the need to know and control the energy used in them. This research aims to identify and quantify the energy used in the construction of healthcare centres and propose indicators based on different operational variables. For this purpose, seven healthcare centres built between 2007 and 2010 were analysed, and the energy embodied in the manufacturing, transport and placement of materials on-site, including the final tests and commissioning of the building, were calculated. The results show that the average embodied energy is 9.97 GJ per unit of built area, 0.011 for each euro invested in construction and 2.18 GJ for each user. Emissions per worker, construction working hour, electrical power and energy consumed were also typified, and different reference indicators were proposed. Equations have also been devised using multivariate regression to determine the embodied energy of a healthcare centre according to its built area (m2), investment in construction (€) and the number of users (No). The building elements with the most embodied energy were also identified, and the authors found that the average embodied energy is 29.31 times higher than that consumed in a year at the healthcare centre.