Adaptability Assessment of CO2 Emission Reduction Technologies for School Buildings: A Case Study of Hot-Summer and Cold-Winter Areas in China

The carbon dioxide (CO2) emission during the operation period of a building accounts for about 80% of the building's total CO2 emission in its whole life cycle, which is an important matter when attempting to reduce the CO2 emission of a building. In recent years, the number of primary and secondary schools in China has grown rapidly. As the energy use of school buildings is different from the energy use of other building types, it is important to explore the adaptability of different CO2 emission reduction technologies to primary and secondary school buildings. This study investigated the basic information of 31 primary and secondary school buildings in a hot-summer and cold-winter area in China and obtained energy consumption data from 21 of them. The 21 schools were then divided into two typical school building types through cluster analysis, and typical models of the two typical building types were built using the Designbuilder software. A total of 22 CO2 emission reduction technologies were selected from practical building cases and from local regulations on the three dimensions of such technologies (i.e., improving the thermal performance of the building envelope, renewable-energy utilization, and use of high-performance equipment) and were applied to the simulation to obtain their corresponding CO2 emission reduction rates. Finally, the 22 CO2 emission reduction technologies were divided into three different grades according to their CO2 emission reduction rates to provide architects with a theoretical basis and practical reference for selecting the appropriate and optimal CO2 emission reduction technologies in the architectural design stage, and to promote the construction of green and low-CO2 campuses.