Jean-Louis Scartezzini

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne | EPFL · Solar Energy and Building Physics Laboratory

Smart blinds are designed to adjust shading to the optimal position according to different sky conditions. They can potentially address the issues of discomfort glare for occupants and reduce the energy demand for cooling during the summer and heating during the winter. In order to understand the behavior of smart blinds and estimate the energy sav...

Compound optimization of distributed energy systems, urban morphology, and the transportation network is crucial to improving the robustness of interconnected urban energy infrastructures and enhancing their resilience to extreme climate events. Available methods and tools mainly focus on optimizing one component in urban areas and fail to consider...

High-technology glazing panes are designed to meet the need for natural light, while optimizing key functions such as reducing solar heat gain in spaces and/or redirecting daylight to the rear of the spaces. However, the actual performance in terms of both illumination and glare protection of these glazing systems is often unknown. This study aims...

Enhancing lighting conditions in institutions for individuals with dementia improves their sleep, circadian rhythms and well-being. Here, we report first findings that exposure to brighter light during daytime may support the immune response to the annual influenza vaccination. Eighty older institutionalized patients suffering from dementia (54 wom...

With wind power providing an increasing amount of electricity worldwide, the quantification of its spatio-temporal variations and the related uncertainty is crucial for energy planners and policy-makers. Here, we propose a methodological framework which (1) uses machine learning to reconstruct a spatio-temporal field of wind speed on a regular grid...

Several contrasting effects are reported in the existing literature concerning the impact assessment of the COVID-19 outbreak on the use of energy in buildings. Following an in-depth literature review, we here propose a GIS-based approach, based on pre-pandemic, partial, and full lockdown scenarios, using a bottom-up engineering model to quantify t...

Improving indoor lighting conditions at the workplace has the potential to support proper circadian entrainment of hormonal rhythms, sleep, and well-being. We tested the effects of optimized dynamic daylight and electric lighting on circadian phase of melatonin, cortisol and skin temperatures in office workers. We equipped one office room with an a...

The urban form and extreme microclimate events can have an important impact on the energy performance of buildings, urban comfort and human health. State-of-the-art building energy simulations require information on the urban microclimate, but typically rely on ad-hoc numerical simulations, expensive in-situ measurements, or data from nearby weathe...

The integrated performance assessment of buildings can orient their design in the early stages. Despite the wide availability of physics simulation-based, data-driven, and hybrid techniques, it is often difficult to rely on a single, appropriate technique to obtain reliable results. A set of methods, each featuring advantages and limitations, help...

Shallow ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) are a promising technology for contributing to the decarbonisation of the energy sector. In heating-dominated climates, the combined use of GSHPs for both heating and cooling increases their technical potential, defined as the maximum energy that can be exchanged with the ground, as the re-injection of exces...

Shallow ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) are a promising technology for contributing to the decarbonisation of the energy sector. In heating-dominated climates, the combined use of GSHPs for both heating and cooling increases their technical potential, defined as the maximum energy that can be exchanged with the ground, as the re-injection of exces...

The spatio-temporal patterns of the existing rooftop photovoltaic (PV) production can provide valuable insights for the design of effective strategies for PV integration at large scale. In this work, we quantify the hourly production of existing rooftop PV installations by combining two large-scale methods, for detecting rooftop solar panels and fo...

The increasing use of ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs) for heating and cooling of buildings raises questions regarding the technical potential of GSHPs and their impact on the temperature in the shallow subsurface. In this paper, we develop a method using Machine Learning to estimate the technical potential of shallow GSHPs, which enables such an e...

Preface to the CISBAT 2021 Journal of Physics: Conference Series special issue CISBAT 2021 took place from 8 to 10 September 2021 online and at the Swiss Tech Convention Center on the campus of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland under the heading "Carbon Neutral Buildings - Energy Efficiency & Renewables in the Digit...

The integration of solar technology in the built environment is realized mainly through rooftop-installed panels. In this paper, we leverage state-of-the-art Machine Learning and computer vision techniques applied on overhead images to provide a geo-localization of the available rooftop surfaces for solar panel installation. We further exploit a 3D...

It is well-known that the morphology of urban areas modifies the variations of climate variables at microscale; known as microclimate conditions. The complexity of urban morphology can lead to undesired wind conditions or excessive air temperature; particularly in extreme weather conditions. This study attempts to quantify the impacts of urban morp...

A timely identification of an anomalous functioning of the energy system of an industrial building would increase the efficiency and the resilience of the energy infrastructure, beside reducing the economic wastage. This work has been inspired by the need of identifying, for a series of supermarket buildings in Switzerland, the failures happening i...

Distributed energy systems play a significant role in the integration of renewable energy technologies. The Energy Internet links a fleet of distributed energy systems to each other and with the grid. Interactions between the distributed energy systems via information sharing could significantly enhance the efficiency of their real-time operation....

The extraction of shallow geothermal energy using borehole heat exchangers (BHEs) is a promising approach for decarbonisation of the heating sector. However, a dense deployment of BHEs may lead to thermal interference between neighbouring boreholes and thereby to over-exploitation of the heat capacity of the ground. Here we propose a novel method t...

Currently, more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, which leads to major changes in land use and land surface temperature (LST). The associated urban heat island (UHI) effects have multiple impacts on energy consumption and human health. A better understanding of how different land covers affect LST is necessary for mitigating adve...

Urban greening has great ecological, social and economic benefits for the built environment. It also has significant impacts on the microclimate and urban energy balance. In this study, we quantify the impacts of urban greening on the ground surface temperatures and the microclimate (e.g. the air temperature and the wind speed variation) as well as...

The lighting environment at indoor workplaces is important not only to provide vision and visual comfort, but also for light’s direct influence on human physiology, cognitive performance and mood. The purpose of this ongoing study is to investigate the impact of a dynamic control of combined daylight and artificial lighting on office users’ visual...

Urban planning strategies must be investigated to reduce the building energy consumption and increase the thermal comfort in cities. The evaluation of the impact of future climate change on urban planning strategies are needed to help urban planners and policymakers face this new challenge particularly in a future where heat waves are going to beco...

Because of the global warming, urban planning strategies must be investigated to reduce the building energy consumption and increase the thermal comfort in cities. In the framework of Energy Strategy 2050 of Switzerland, this research highlights the impact of climate change on urban planning and proposes strategies to help urban planners and policy...

Photovoltaic (PV) panels are a very promising technology that answers part of the increasing need for global renewable energy production, particularly in urban areas. We present a novel methodology combining Geographic Information Systems (GIS), solar models and a Machine Learning (ML) algorithm, Random Forests, to estimate the potential for roofto...

The spatial visualization is a very useful tool to help decision-makers in the urban planning process to create future energy transition strategies, implementing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies in the context of sustainable cities. Statistical methods are often used to understand the driving parameters of energy consumption but...

A simulation tool is developed to make a comprehensive techno-economic and environmental assessment of a case study under different scenarios. Different capacity of solar and storage technologies are considered. The model calculates the levelized cost of electricity, the autonomy level and the CO2 emissions. We demonstrate that the economic profita...

Multidisciplinary research on daylight can identify interventions that promote health, including changes in life- style and cultural attitudes, and new approaches to built and natural environments. The aim of this publication is to explore the many surprising and novel insights provided by contemporary research into this complex subject. In this ch...

Deposition of nano-composite Mg–F–Si–O films on optical grade silica glass was studied employing RF magnetron co-sputtering from magnesium fluoride (MgF2) and fused silica (SiO2) targets. The aim was to obtain a stable and reliable sputtering process for optical coatings exhibiting a refractive index lower than the one of quartz glass (1.46 at 550...

The energy demand of buildings and outdoor human comfort are key elements of a sustainable urban design. The wind speed has an enormous impact on thermal sensation, but the sensation itself is hard to quantify. The objective of this paper is to understand how the wind influences thermal energy exchanges, and to quantify its impact on outdoor therma...

The need for reduction in CO2 emissions to mitigate global warming has resulted in increasing use of renewable energy sources. In urban areas, solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment on existing rooftops is one of the most viable sustainable energy resources. The present study uses a combination of support vector machines (SVMs) and geographic informati...

Urban areas are facing a growing deployment of solar technologies on the built exposed surfaces such as roofs and façades. This transformation often occurs without consideration of the needed architectural quality, which depends on the context sensitivity and on solar technologies visibility from public space. The definition of visibility is explor...

Circadian rhythms in physiology and behavior are modulated by external factors such as light or temperature. We studied whether self-selected office lighting during the habitual waking period had a different impact on alertness, cognitive performance and hormonal secretion in extreme morning and evening chronotypes (N = 32), whose preferred bed- an...

Compactness is a major urban form parameter that affects the accessibility of solar energy in the built environment. Here we explore the relation between various compactness indicators and solar potential in the 16 neighbourhoods (11,418 buildings) constituting the city of Geneva Switzerland). The solar potential is assessed for building integrated...

Advanced optical ray tracing software, CFSpro, was developed for the study and optimization of complex fenestration systems (CFSs). Using an algorithm mixing 2D and 3D approaches, accurate computation of large numbers of rays in extruded geometries can be performed and visualized in real time. A thin film model was included to assess the spectral c...

Integration of non-dispatchable renewable energy sources such as wind and solar into the grid is challenging due to the stochastic nature of energy sources. Hence, electrical hubs (EH) and virtual power plants that combine non-dispatchable energy sources, energy storage and dispatchable energy sources such as internal combustion generators and micr...

This article quantifies the energy saving potential and robustness of nine energy retrofitting measures, as well as four combinations of these, for residential building stocks of three major cities in Sweden and for five scenarios of future climatic conditions, downscaled by a regional climate model (RCM). The retrofitting measures are evaluated fo...

We previously developed a Camera-Like Light Sensor (CLLS) to record images using a novel High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging vision sensor. The device was equipped with customized filters for adapting the camera’s spectral sensitivity to both photopic and circadian sensitivities. Here, we aim at investigating photometric and circadian metrics to asses...

One of the most promising sustainable energies that can be considered in urban environments is solar energy. A 3D model for solar energy potential on building envelope based on urban LiDAR data was developed in this study. The developed algorithm can be used to model solar irradiation with high spatio-temporal resolution for roofs, facades, and gro...

Since the beginning of the 21st century, straw-bale buildings are reappearing in the world; however, their thermal performances were not thoroughly investigated up to now. The purpose of this study is to analyze thermal behavior and energy performance of a straw-bale building in Switzerland. Using Pleiades+Comfie Software, building designs have bee...

The increase of the urban population and the climate change are issues that scientists and stakeholders are facing nowadays; in this optic a sustainable design should address buildings, and all the physical phenomena that interact with them, from the urban to the district scale. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) located i...

In this work, we study MgF2 thin-film synthesis by reactive pulsed DC magnetron sputtering from a metallic magnesium target in a gas mixture of argon, oxygen, and carbon tetrafluoride (CF4). Nanocrystalline films on silicon and glass substrates with excellent properties for optical application are achieved. The plasma discharge is analyzed with a d...

In this work, we study MgF2 thin-film synthesis by reactive pulsed DC magnetron sputtering from a metallic magnesium target in a gas mixture of argon, oxygen, and carbon tetrafluoride (CF4). Nanocrystalline films on silicon and glass substrates with excellent properties for optical application are achieved. The plasma discharge is analyzed with a d...

Complex Fenestration Systems (CFS) are advanced daylighting systems that are placed on the upper part of a window to improve the indoor daylight distribution within rooms. Due to their double function of daylight redirection and solar protection, they are considered as a solution to mitigate the unfavorable effects due to the admission of direct su...

Renewable energy integration into multi energy grids (MEG) is gradually getting popular due to the rapid depletion of fossil fuel resources and the global concern on GHG emissions through fossil fuel based energy conversion technologies. However, seasonal changes in solar and wind energy potentials make it challenging to increase the renewable ener...

In this work, the potential of magnetron sputtered magnesium fluoride (MgF2) and MgF2 containing composite coatings for coloured solar collector glazing is investigated. Coloured thin-film interference coatings on the reverse side of the collector cover glass give solar collectors an aesthetic appearance, which facilitates their integration into th...

Buildings account for almost 40% of energy consumption in European countries and hence are responsible for a significant part of greenhouse gas emissions. Recent regulations and standards (Minergie, Minergie P, etc.) are strongly encouraging more sustainable buildings by decreasing energy consumption and integrating more renewable energy sources. I...

Solar photovoltaic (PV) deployment on existing building roof-tops has proven to be one of the most viable large scale resources of sustainable energy for urban areas. While there have been many studies on roof-top integrated PV systems at building and neighborhood scale, estimating the PV energy potential through the available roof surface area in...

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A 1-D canopy interface model (CIM) has been developed recently and integrated in the meso-scale meteorological WRF v3.5 model in order to improve the surface representation. One of the objectives of such a model is to prepare for the coupling of micro-scale models with meso-scale models so as to improve building energy consumption estimates at the...

Various aspects of the built environment have important effects on ecology. Providing suitable metrics for the built forms so as to quantify and model their internal relations and external ecological footprints, however, remains a challenge. Here we provide such metrics focusing on the spatial distribution of 11,418 buildings within the city of Gen...

Global warming and energy shortage have aroused a great interest in climate responsive strategies of vernacular dwellings during recent years. This study focuses on a qualitative analysis of ancient dwellings located in the village of Xinye, in the hot summer and cold winter region of China. Furthermore, a typical ancient dwelling located in the vi...

The parameters of thermal evaporation and magnetron sputtering deposition were optimized for fabrication of vanadium dioxide thin films. The O2 partial pressure during film deposition is critical for obtaining a pure VO2 phase. Thermochromic V1−xWxO2 (x = 0.16 at.%) thin films were synthesized by thermal evaporation, while thermochromic VO2, V1−xWx...

Rapid urbanisation and the increasing world population call for a new approach in urban design, favouring energy efficiency and sustainability of the built environment. When focusing on City Energy Modelling, unlike Building Energy Modelling, each urban simulation engine generally has its own tailor-made data-model: municipalities and other urban i...

In this article we present a novel approach to model visual comfort based on supervised state-based machine learning with Hidden Markov Models and one easy-to-obtain variable (illuminance measurements at the horizontal work-plane; E desk). Data mining was performed on sensor data recorded for two years in a single-occupant office room and the devel...

The MEU GIS-enabled web-platform [1] has been developed in close collaboration with four Swiss cities. The tool enables detailed monitoring and planning for both energy demand and supply at individual building, neighborhood and whole city scale (http://meu.epfl.ch). This web-platform acts like an interface between different tools and allows to esta...