Abstract
With the growth of the number of old buildings in urban cities, there is an imperative demand for retrofitting those buildings to minimize their energy consumption and maximize their sustainability. This article seeks to provide a multi-criteria assessment of different retrofitting scenarios in the Malaysian context, focusing replacement of windows. Four different criteria assessed operation energy usage, global warming potential (GWP) emission, embodied energy, and the cost of each alternative. Life cycle analysis is used for each scenario using the Energy Plus software program to estimate the energy demand. The preliminary result showed that a louvered window is unsuitable for operational energy usage compared to other options. In embodied energy and GWP, double-glazing shows an optimal choice by 532 MJ kg/m2 and 101 kg/M2 CO2 between the other two alternatives for retrofitting. However, in the operational energy category, triple glazing has the best performance by 1.06 kW/a day. Finally, comparing the cost of each other options, plenum windows have the lowest rate by 825 kg/M2 MYR. Thus, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) is used to select the most sustainable window for buildings. The result shows that the best option is a double-glazing window, followed by a plenum window. This study revealed the requirement for utilization of MCDM handles to guarantee the correct choice of design strategies for the best decision.
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Data availability
The datasets used and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data collection and software analysis were performed by Ali Tighnavard Balasbaneh, David Yeoh, Mohd Zamri Ramli, and Mohammad Hossein Taghizadeh Valdi. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Ali Tighnavard Balasbaneh; all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Appendices
Appendix 1
Alternatives | Embodied energy (MJ) | GWP (CO2) | Operational energy (kWh) | LCC (MYR) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Louvered window | 0.424 | 0.380 | 0.659 | 0.402 |
Plenum window | 0.473 | 0.505 | 0.485 | 0.452 |
Double glass | 0.455 | 0.505 | 0.418 | 0.487 |
Triple glazing | 0.624 | 0.588 | 0.396 | 0.630 |
Appendix 2
Alternatives | Embodied energy (MJ) | GWP (CO2) | Operational energy (kWh) | LCC (MYR) | Si+ | Si− | Pi |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Louvered window | 0.1059 | 0.0949 | 0.1647 | 0.1004 | 0.0658 | 0.0921 | 0.5833 |
Plenum window | 0.1183 | 0.1264 | 0.1212 | 0.1131 | 0.0424 | 0.0756 | 0.6405 |
Double glass | 0.1136 | 0.1261 | 0.1045 | 0.1218 | 0.0390 | 0.0844 | 0.6839 |
Triple glazing | 0.1561 | 0.1470 | 0.0989 | 0.1574 | 0.0921 | 0.0658 | 0.4167 |
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Balasbaneh, A.T., Yeoh, D., Ramli, M.Z. et al. Different alternative retrofit to improving the sustainability of building in tropical climate: multi-criteria decision-making. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 41669–41683 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18647-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-18647-8