Analysis of urban scale energy certification systems for efficient communities

Abstract

Cities have not been planned considering the energy they demand. The environmental crisis has led to center the attention in the energy conservation at building scale. But, the energy efficiency of the city does not depend on the sum of bioclimatic buildings. Being the planning of the urban form necessary to combine the performance of the buildings with the environment. In this frame, the urban certification systems incorporate the valuation of energy efficiency. This work analyzes four systems (BREEAM, LEED®, Green Star, and CASBEE), detects from the set that which in its categories emphasizes the relationship between urban form and energy consumption; and applies it to a set of cases in the study area. Analysis shows that LEED® places greater importance on urban form planning. However, when evaluating the performance between LEED® and the case studies, it is detected that the urban form-energy consumption relationship is not congruent between the certification requirements and the consumption obtained.