Jesus Lizana

University of Oxford | OX · Department of Engineering Science

Heating and cooling are responsible for 70% of energy consumption in European buildings, with renewables covering only 18%. To reduce emissions in the building sector, district heating based on low-carbon energy is identified as a key technology for the transition to a low-carbon economy. However, currently only 16% of thermal district networks are...

Building sector is responsible for 40% of European energy consumption, of which heating and cooling account for around 70%. Moreover, 75% of buildings for 2050 are already built in Europe. On the road to a sustainable energy transition, this article develops a multi-criteria assessment methodology for the environmental, economic and social evaluati...

Large ensembles of global temperature are provided for three climate scenarios: historical (2006–16), 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C above pre-industrial levels. Each scenario has 700 members (70 simulations per year for ten years) of 6-hourly mean temperatures at a resolution of 0.833° ´ 0.556° (longitude ´ latitude) over the land surface. The data was generat...

Decarbonizing the building stock in cold countries by replacing fossil fuel boilers with heat pumps is expected to drastically increase electricity demand. While heating flexibility could reduce the impact of additional demand from heat pumps on the power system, characterizing the national spatial distribution of heating flexibility capacity to in...

Decarbonizing the residential building sector by replacing gas boilers with electric heat pumps will dramatically increase electricity demand. Existing models of future heat pump demand either use daily heating demand profiles that do not capture heat pump use or do not represent sub-national heating demand variation. This work presents a novel met...

Limiting global mean temperature rise to 1.5 °C is increasingly out of reach. Here we show the impact on global cooling demand in moving from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C of global warming. African countries have the highest increase in cooling requirements. Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Norway (traditionally unprepared for heat) will suffer the largest...

Large ensembles of global temperature are provided for three climate scenarios: historical (2006-16), 1.5 C and 2.0 C above pre-industrial levels. Each scenario has 700 members (70 runs per year for 10-year periods) of 6-hourly mean temperatures at a resolution of 0.833 degrees x 0.556 degrees (longitude x latitude). The data was generated using th...

Urban heat islands are compounding the dangerous impacts of urban heat exposure globally. Cities across geographies require immediate and advanced urban climate information with enough resolution to detect risks and prioritise local climate adaptation interventions for their people. This research analyses the applicability of 550,000 citizen weathe...

This article examines cooling in the built environment, an area of rapidly rising energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, the status quo of cooling is assessed and proposals are made for how to advance towards sustainable cooling through five levers of change: social interactions, technology innovations, business models, governanc...

This paper shows the impact on global cooling demand of moving from a 1.5ºC to 2.0ºC temperature increase. African countries have the highest increase in cooling requirements. The United Kingdom, Switzerland, and Norway (traditionally unprepared for extreme heat) will suffer the largest relative cooling demand surges.

The present study aimed to provide an in-depth assessment of the commuting patterns of scholar communities of southwestern European countries and to identify measures to improve their sustainable performance regarding mobility. The adopted methodology characterised the mobility pattern of students as a sustainability indicator and the availability...

Data to replicate global maps on absolute and relative changes in cooling degree days (from a 1.5ºC to a 2.0ºC warmer planet). Ensembles of 2100 climate simulations were generated using the HadAM4P Atmosphere-only General Circulation Model (AGCM) from the UK Met Office Hadley Centre. Three scenarios (with 700 simulations each) were used: historica...

Global warming is increasing extreme heat conditions, with existing energy efficiency policies showing trade-offs between mitigation objectives and adaptation to climate change. This research aims to identify the best resilient cooling solutions that should be promoted in the built environment of extremely hot countries to increase their heat resil...

Heating decarbonisation through electrification requires the development of novel heat batteries. They should be suitable for the specific application and match the operation conditions of domestic renewable energy sources. Supercooled liquids, often considered a drawback of phase change materials, are among the most promising technologies supporti...

Heating decarbonisation through electrification is a difficult challenge due to the considerable increase in peak power demand. This research proposes a novel modelling approach that utilises easily accessible national-level data to identify the required heat storage volume to decrease peak power demand and maximises carbon reductions associated wi...

Designing buildings to prevent indoor overheating requires the definition of accurate procedures to measure the passive survivability of buildings and support retrofitting. This research proposes innovative diagnostic methods to audit the heat resilience of buildings using long-term monitoring data of temperature and CO2 concentrations. The aim is...

This chapter reviews the different approaches that currently exist to evaluate outdoor microclimates and their influence on building performance. Considering specific outdoor microclimates in building design flow can enable additional passive cooling strategies to mitigate climate risks in buildings and cities, improving their resilience capacity u...

This publication summarizes a long period of research on the environmental performance of schools inside the framework of the ClimACT project (2016-2019). It proposes a methodological approach towards a low-carbon economy based on two main actions for environmental education in schools: measuring the environmental performance of school communities...

Phase change materials (PCM) have been widely investigated for heat storage and transfer applications. Numerous numerical simulation approaches have been proposed for modelling their behaviour and predicting their performance in thermal applications. However, simulation approaches do not consider the kinetics of the phase transition processes, comp...

Extreme heat events are expected to occur more often as a consequence of climate change. This paper quantifies the impact of urban climate on building performance and evaluates the benefits of specific microclimates, such as inner courtyards, to mitigate extreme heat impacts. A reference case study associated with two outdoor weather conditions, an...

The research field on passive intervention strategies in schools is broad, complex, and fragmented due to the great diversity of disciplines, climates, and approaches. This article applies the scientific mapping software SciMAT to analyse research trends and developments from 1982 to 2020 of 537 papers and identifies the best available 24 passive i...

Indoor air quality in schools has a direct impact on the performance and wellbeing of students. In 2020, the health emergency required the reconsideration of ventilation conditions in indoor spaces, especially for educational buildings. This paper advances previous investigations to identify affordable, sustainable, and healthy designs for the refu...

The increasingly urgent phenomenon of global warming has a critical epicentre in the topic of urban thermal comfort, which is significantly influenced by the urban heat island effect. In this built environment, creative thinking is required to shape pleasant, healthy, and sustainable microclimates, and not only urban planners and designers but also...

Environmental empowering to control resource consumption and environmental impacts is critical to engage citizens to adopt more sustainable habits. This study demonstrates the potential benefits of innovative approaches based on sustainability indicators towards a low-carbon economy. A methodology to measure and promote sustainability in schools ha...

Indoor air quality plays an important role in children's wellbeing and performance. The primary attention of previous research is focused on the air quality in school environments, but time at school only represent 27% of the daily schedule. This paper analyses a broad spectrum of volatile organic compounds and aldehydes in different indoor microen...

Thermal energy and distributed electricity demand are continuously increased in areas poorly served by a centralized power grid. In many cases, the deployment of the electricity grid is not economically feasible. Small-scale Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) appears as a promising technology that can be operated by solar energy, providing combined heat a...

Industrialized lightweight buildings have great advantages associated with lower indirect costs, minimum construction wastes and faster construction processes. However, their main weaknesses lie in their acoustic performance and fire resistance. This paper develops and assesses a novel lightweight steel floor with high fire resistance and high acou...

Elderly people usually spend more than 80% of their daily lives in apartments that mostly belong to obsolete buildings with reduced spaces and inadequate indoor environmental quality, which may lead to tiredness and other adverse health symptoms. In an attempt to evaluate indoor environmental quality and identify the main influencing factors of soc...

Indoor air quality in school buildings plays an important role in students' wellbeing and performance. The presence and evolution of different compounds are directly affected by indoor activities, classroom materials and equipment, along with outside conditions derived from location and surrounding activities. Despite high CO2 concentration levels...

Global warming is gradually increasing the cooling energy demand of buildings. Phase change materials (PCM) offer high potential to passively reduce cooling energy consumption and overheating by absorbing heat gains in the daytime through their melting process, and releasing the heat at night while solidifying by taking advantage of free cooling th...

Low-carbon energy retrofitting in buildings plays an important role because 75% of European buildings are considered inefficient and more than 40% are currently over 50 years old. The economic reinvestment of energy retrofit actions through reduced energy bills, as energy directives promote, greatly depends upon the energy consumption patterns. In...

Optimized energy use and water provision in school buildings play an important role in the sustainability performance of municipalities, and are included in the local sustainable energy policies. Hot climate conditions exacerbate the need for the use of cooling devices and are usually associated to water scarcity problems. Additionally, school buil...

One of the greatest challenges for long-term emissions reduction is the decarbonisation of heating and cooling due to the large scale, seasonal variation and distributed nature. Energy flexible buildings with electric heating, smart demand-side management and efficient thermal energy storage are one of the most promising strategies to deploy low-ca...

Over the last 40 years different thermal energy storage materials have been investigated with the aim of enhancing energy efficiency in buildings, improving systems performance, and increasing the share of renewable energies. However, the main requirements for their efficient implementation are not fully met by most of them. This paper develops a c...

Within the building sector, schools have a major social responsibility because of their educational purpose. With the aim of providing a novel energy modelling process to evaluate the real energy performance of school buildings and potential energy savings, minimizing input data collection, this paper presents a new energy assessment method to supp...

This paper presents a methodology for analyzing the regional potential for developing biomass district heating systems combining forestry biomass and agriculture residues as fuel. As a case study, this methodology is applied to the continental region of Spain. With this analysis the potential for the implementation of biomass district heating syste...

Thermal energy storage and management in builtable dings play a major role in the transition towards a low-carbon economy. Buildings are the largest energy-consuming sector in the world, where heating and cooling are around 60-70%. This paper provides a comprehensive review of advanced low-carbon energy measures based on thermal energy storage tech...

Optimized energy and water provision in school buildings is often considered as important aspects in the sustainability performance of municipalities, and mitigation actions for these sectors are often included in the local sustainable energy policies. Hot climate conditions exacerbates the need for the use of cooling devices and are usually associ...

Optimized energy and water provision in school buildings is often considered as important aspects in the sustainability performance of municipalities, and mitigation actions for these sectors are often included in the local sustainable energy policies. Hot climate conditions exacerbates the need for the use of cooling devices and are usually associ...

Buildings are responsible for one-third of the world's energy consumption, of which 60% is due to heating and cooling. To accomplish the low-carbon energy goal in the building sector, thermal energy storage offers a number of benefits by reducing energy consumption and promoting the use of renewable energy sources. This manuscript reviews recent ad...

Capture and sequestration of CO2 released by conventional fossil fuel combustion is an urgent need to mitigate global warming. In this work, main CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) systems are reviewed, with the focus on their integration with renewables in order to achieve power plants with nearly zero CO2 emissions. Among these technologies unde...