Study on the impact of microclimate on energy spatialization in urban areas of Dhaka

Abstract

Increasing energy demand is a vital concern for city development. From different studies, it is been found that, significant parts of the world’s energy resources are used for controlling the building’s internal environments. An aspect that has often been overlooked is that energy consumption is influenced by urban microclimate and urban microclimate is influenced by the urban settings or urban morphology. For a tropical city like Dhaka, urban design has the potential for reducing the extent use of energy by modulating its microclimate. This research work is focused on studying the relationship among the urban microclimate, energy demand and urban morphological characteristics of Dhaka city. The aim of the research is predicting the impact of urban morphological aspects on energy consumption by way of energy spatialization with studying the relationship between energy consumption and environmental parameters of the microclimates. Microclimatic simulations, energy spatialized map and statistical analysis have been used to address the research aim. Recent studies reveal that energy requires space for production and distribution. So, if energy data is spatialized and observed against other spatial and environmental parameters potentials for unique insights are opened with possibility for knowledge of new causal connections. Very few studies have been conducted linking these spatial structures with energy consumption. The study was based on field data and computer based simulations. For this research, an area of Dhaka city has been taken as study area to find the relationship between urban microclimate and energy consumption. The study has been done on twenty samples of built forms (buildings) from a selected area with various morphological aspects and having similar physical, behavioral and socio-cultural characteristics of the occupants, to find the relationship between urban morphology and energy consumption. This research examines various environmental parameters of microclimates, energy consumption pattern, built forms and morphological aspects of an urban setting. Correlations have been drawn between spatialized historical energy data from utility agencies and environmental parameters of the microclimates through parametric studies over different time of day and a range of season. Urban design parameters and thermal factors of the microclimates studied have been discussed and indications for development of guidelines for low energy urban development have made.