IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v14y2021i16p5208-d620048.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Crowdsourcing Urban Air Temperature Data for Estimating Urban Heat Island and Building Heating/Cooling Load in London

Author

Listed:
  • Kit Benjamin

    (Department of Meteorology, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UR, UK)

  • Zhiwen Luo

    (School of the Built Environment, University of Reading, Reading RG6 6UR, UK)

  • Xiaoxue Wang

    (College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen 518061, China)

Abstract

Urban heat island (UHI) effects significantly impact building energy. Traditional UHI investigation methods are often incapable of providing the high spatial density of observations required to distinguish small-scale temperature differences in the UHI. Crowdsourcing offers a solution. Building cooling/heating load in 2018 has been estimated in London, UK, using crowdsourced data from over 1300 Netatmo personal weather stations. The local climate zone (LCZ) scheme was used to classify the different urban environments of London (UK). Inter-LCZ temperature differences are found to be generally consistent with LCZ temperature definitions. Analysis of cooling degree hours in July shows LCZ 2 (the densest urban LCZ in London) had the highest cooling demand, with a total of 1550 cooling degree hours. The suburban related LCZs 5 and 6 and rural LCZs B and D all had about 80% of the demand of LCZ 2. In December, the rural LCZs A, B and D had the greatest heating demand, with all recording around 5750 heating degree hours. Urban LCZs 2, 5 and 6 had 91%, 86% and 95% of the heating demand of LCZ D, respectively. This study has highlighted both advantages and issues with using crowdsourced data for urban climate and building energy research.

Suggested Citation

  • Kit Benjamin & Zhiwen Luo & Xiaoxue Wang, 2021. "Crowdsourcing Urban Air Temperature Data for Estimating Urban Heat Island and Building Heating/Cooling Load in London," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-26, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:16:p:5208-:d:620048
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/16/5208/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/16/5208/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Xiaoma & Zhou, Yuyu & Yu, Sha & Jia, Gensuo & Li, Huidong & Li, Wenliang, 2019. "Urban heat island impacts on building energy consumption: A review of approaches and findings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 407-419.
    2. Xie, Xiaoxiong & Sahin, Ozge & Luo, Zhiwen & Yao, Runming, 2020. "Impact of neighbourhood-scale climate characteristics on building heating demand and night ventilation cooling potential," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 150(C), pages 943-956.
    3. Shi, Luyang & Luo, Zhiwen & Matthews, Wendy & Wang, Zixuan & Li, Yuguo & Liu, Jing, 2019. "Impacts of urban microclimate on summertime sensible and latent energy demand for cooling in residential buildings of Hong Kong," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    4. Yang, Liu & Yan, Haiyan & Lam, Joseph C., 2014. "Thermal comfort and building energy consumption implications – A review," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 164-173.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tian, Xiaoyu & Zhang, Hanwen & Liu, Lin & Huang, Jiahao & Liu, Liru & Liu, Jing, 2024. "Establishment of LCZ-based urban building energy consumption dataset in hot and humid subtropical regions through a bottom-up method," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 368(C).
    2. Jie Han & Nan Mo & Jingyi Cai & Leixin Ouyang & Zhengxuan Liu, 2024. "Advancing the local climate zones framework: a critical review of methodological progress, persisting challenges, and future research prospects," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-18, December.
    3. Tianyu Xi & Jin Li & Nuannuan Yang & Xinyu Liu & Fei Guo, 2025. "Analysis of the Characteristics of Heat Island Intensity Based on Local Climate Zones in the Transitional Season of Shenyang," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Wei, Zhichen & Calautit, John, 2023. "Predictive control of low-temperature heating system with passive thermal mass energy storage and photovoltaic system: Impact of occupancy patterns and climate change," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 269(C).
    5. Xinyi Wang & Yuan Chen & Zhichao Wang & Bo Xu & Zhongke Feng, 2024. "Multi-Temporal Analysis of the Impact of Summer Forest Dynamics on Urban Heat Island Effect in Yan’an City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-22, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Baniassadi, Amir & Heusinger, Jannik & Gonzalez, Pablo Izaga & Weber, Stephan & Samuelson, Holly W., 2022. "Co-benefits of energy efficiency in residential buildings," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 238(PB).
    2. Samuelson, Holly W. & Baniassadi, Amir & Gonzalez, Pablo Izaga, 2020. "Beyond energy savings: Investigating the co-benefits of heat resilient architecture," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C).
    3. Tian, Xiaoyu & Zhang, Hanwen & Liu, Lin & Huang, Jiahao & Liu, Liru & Liu, Jing, 2024. "Establishment of LCZ-based urban building energy consumption dataset in hot and humid subtropical regions through a bottom-up method," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 368(C).
    4. Tianyu Xi & Jin Li & Nuannuan Yang & Xinyu Liu & Fei Guo, 2025. "Analysis of the Characteristics of Heat Island Intensity Based on Local Climate Zones in the Transitional Season of Shenyang," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(5), pages 1-23, February.
    5. Yang, Xiaoshan & Yao, Lingye & Peng, Lilliana L.H., 2024. "Impacts of urban air temperature and humidity on building cooling and heating energy demand in 15 cities of eastern China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 288(C).
    6. Ebrahim Morady & Madjid Soltani & Farshad Moradi Kashkooli & Masoud Ziabasharhagh & Armughan Al-Haq & Jatin Nathwani, 2022. "Improving Energy Efficiency by Utilizing Wetted Cellulose Pads in Passive Cooling Systems," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-17, January.
    7. Hinker, Jonas & Hemkendreis, Christian & Drewing, Emily & März, Steven & Hidalgo Rodríguez, Diego I. & Myrzik, Johanna M.A., 2017. "A novel conceptual model facilitating the derivation of agent-based models for analyzing socio-technical optimality gaps in the energy domain," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 1219-1230.
    8. Cui, Can & Zhang, Xin & Cai, Wenjian, 2020. "An energy-saving oriented air balancing method for demand controlled ventilation systems with branch and black-box model," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    9. Picallo-Perez, Ana & Catrini, Pietro & Piacentino, Antonio & Sala, José-Mª, 2019. "A novel thermoeconomic analysis under dynamic operating conditions for space heating and cooling systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 180(C), pages 819-837.
    10. Małgorzata Fedorczak-Cisak & Katarzyna Nowak & Marcin Furtak, 2019. "Analysis of the Effect of Using External Venetian Blinds on the Thermal Comfort of Users of Highly Glazed Office Rooms in a Transition Season of Temperate Climate—Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-18, December.
    11. Burillo, Daniel & Chester, Mikhail V. & Pincetl, Stephanie & Fournier, Eric, 2019. "Electricity infrastructure vulnerabilities due to long-term growth and extreme heat from climate change in Los Angeles County," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 943-953.
    12. Shady Attia, 2020. "Spatial and Behavioral Thermal Adaptation in Net Zero Energy Buildings: An Exploratory Investigation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-15, September.
    13. Li, Biao & Han, Zongwei & Bai, Chenguang & Hu, Honghao, 2019. "The influence of soil thermal properties on the operation performance on ground source heat pump system," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 141(C), pages 903-913.
    14. Bakhshoodeh, Reza & Ocampo, Carlos & Oldham, Carolyn, 2022. "Thermal performance of green façades: Review and analysis of published data," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    15. Magnouréwa Josiane Tossim & Parfait Altolnan Tombar & Sinko Banakinao & Célestin Adeito Mavunda & Tchakouni Sondou & Cyprien Coffi Aholou & Yawovi Mawuénya Xolali Dany Ayité, 2024. "Analysis of the Choice of Cement in Construction and Its Impact on Comfort in Togo," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(17), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Sun, Xiaoqin & Medina, Mario A. & Lee, Kyoung Ok & Jin, Xing, 2018. "Laboratory assessment of residential building walls containing pipe-encapsulated phase change materials for thermal management," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 383-391.
    17. Sánchez-Guevara Sánchez, Carmen & Sanz Fernández, Ana & Núñez Peiró, Miguel & Gómez Muñoz, Gloria, 2020. "Energy poverty in Madrid: Data exploitation at the city and district level," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    18. Coyne, Bryan & Denny, Eleanor, 2021. "Retrofit effectiveness: Evidence from a nationwide residential energy efficiency programme," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    19. George M. Stavrakakis & Dimitris Al. Katsaprakakis & Markos Damasiotis, 2021. "Basic Principles, Most Common Computational Tools, and Capabilities for Building Energy and Urban Microclimate Simulations," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-41, October.
    20. Meng, Fanchao & Zhang, Lei & Ren, Guoyu & Zhang, Ruixue, 2023. "Impacts of UHI on variations in cooling loads in buildings during heatwaves: A case study of Beijing and Tianjin, China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 273(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:16:p:5208-:d:620048. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.