BIGDATA: Collaborative Research: IA: Big Data Analytics for Optimized Planning of Smart, Sustainable, and Connected Communities

The goal of this project is to develop a new planning framework for smart, connected and sustainable communities that allows meeting such zero energy, zero outage, and zero congestions goals by optimally deciding on how, when, and where to deploy or upgrade a community's infrastructure. By bringing together interdisciplinary domain experts from data science, electrical engineering, and civil and architectural engineering, this research will yield several innovations: 

1. Novel big data techniques for faithfully creating spatiotemporal models for smart communities that integrate data from heterogeneous sources and shed light on the composition and operation of a given smart community;
2. Novel, data driven performance metrics that advance powerful mathematical tools from stochastic geometry to explicitly quantify the health of smart communities via tractable notions of zero energy, zero outage, and zero congestion;
3. Advanced analytical tools that bring forward novel ideas from optimization theory to devise the most effective strategies for deploying, upgrading, and operating various community infrastructure nodes, given the scale, dynamics, and structure of both the data and the community;
4. A virtual smart community testbed that can accurately reconstruct, simulate, and evaluate the theoretical framework by leveraging open nonproprietary real world big data sets.

Go to project website to read more

Project Team

Faculty:

Wangda Zuo, Ph.D. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
wangda.zuo@colorado.edu

 

Graduate Students:

Jing Wang, M.S. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
jing.wang@colorado.edu

 

Katy Hinkelman, M.S., EIT 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
kathryn.hinkelman@colorado.edu

 

Saranya Anbarasu, M.S. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
saan1256@colorado.edu

 

Mingzhe Liu, Ph.D. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
mingzhe.liu@colorado.edu

 

Chengnan Shi, M.S. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
chengnan.shi@colorado.edu

 

Yingli Lou, M.S. 
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
yingli.lou@colorado.edu

 

Yizhi Yang, M.S,
Department of Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering, University of Colorado Boulder
yizhi.yang@colorado.edu

 

Collaborators

• Historic Green Village
• Amzur Technologies
• Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University

Resulted Open Source Libraries

This project has developed two open source Modelica libraries:

• Smart and Connected Community (SCC) Library
• Net Zero Energy Community (NZEC) Library

Press Release

• National Science Foundation Award Announcement
• National Science Foundation Press Release 15-103 "Cultivating Smart and Connected Communities
• UM COE News "Planning Smart, Sustainable and Connected Communities"
• UM Speical Report on Cuba and the Caribbean: Exploring Energy Options for Cuba

Publications

Journal articles

• J. Wang, S. Huang, W. Zuo, D. Vrabie 2021. “Occupant Preference-Aware Load Scheduling for Resilient Communities.” Energy and Buildings, 252, pp. 111399.
• S. Huang, J. Wang, Y. Fu, W. Zuo, K. Hinkelman, R. M. Kaiser, D. He, D. Vrabie 2021. “An Open-source Virtual Testbed for a Real Net-Zero Energy Community”. Sustainable Cities and Society, 75, pp. 103255.
• Y. Ye, K. Hinkelman, Y. Lou, W. Zuo, G. Wang, G., J. Zhang 2021. "Evaluating the Energy Impact Potential of Energy Efficiency Measures for Retrofit Applications: A Case Study with US Medium Office Buildings." Building Simulation, pp. 1-17.
• S, Huang, Y. Ye, Di. Wu, W. Zuo 2021. “An Assessment of Power Flexibility from Commercial Building Cooling Systems in the United States.” Energy, 221, pp. 119571.
• Y. Ye, Y. Lou, W. Zuo, E. Franconi, G. Wang 2020. "How Do Electricity Pricing Programs Impact the Selection of Energy Efficiency Measures? - A Case Study with U.S. Medium Office Buildings." Energy and Buildings, 224, pp. 110267.
• YY. Ye, Y. Lou, M. Strong, S. Upadhyaya, W. Zuo, G. Wang 2020. "Development of New Baseline Models for U.S. Medium Office Buildings Based on Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey Data." Science and Technology for the Built Environment, 26 (9), pp. 1321-1336.
• W. Tian, X. Han, W. Zuo, Q. Wang, Y. Fu, M. Jin 2019. “An Optimization Platform Based on Coupled Indoor Environment and HVAC Simulation and Its Application in Optimal Thermostat Placement.” Energy and Buildings, 199, pp. 342-251.
• S. Huang, X. Lu, W. Zuo, X. Zhang, C. Liang 2019. "Model-Based Optimal Operation of Heating Tower Heat Pump Systems." Building and Environment, 160, pp. 106199.
• W. Tian, J.W. VanGilder, X. Han, C.M. Healey, M.B. Condor, W. Zuo 2019. “A New Fast Fluid Dynamics Model for Data-Center Floor Plenums.” ASHRAE Transactions, 125, pp. 141-148.
• X. Lu, K. Hinkelman, Y. Fu, J. Wang, W. Zuo, Q. Zhang, W. Saad 2019. “An Open Source Modeling Framework for Interdependent Energy-Transportation-Communication Infrastructure in Smart and Connected Communities.” IEEE Access, 7, pp. 55458-55476.
• S. Huang, Y. Ye, X. Han, W. Zuo, X. Zhang, L. Jiang 2019. “Performance Evaluation of Heating Tower Heat Pump Systems over the World.” Energy Conversion and Management, 186, pp. 500-515.
• S. Huang, W. Zuo, H. Lu, C. Liang, X. Zhang 2019. “Performance Comparison of a Heating Tower Heat Pump and an Air-Source Heat Pump: A Comprehensive Modeling and Simulation Study.” Energy Conversion and Management, 180, pp. 1039-1054.
• G. Zhou, Y. Ye, W. Zuo,  X. Zhou, X. Xu 2018. “Fast and Efficient Prediction of Finned-Tube Heat Exchanger Performance Using Wet-Dry Transformation Method with Nominal Data.” Applied Thermal Engineering, 145, pp. 133-146.
• G. Zhou, Y. Ye, J. Wang, W. Zuo, Y. Fu, X. Zhou 2018. “Modeling Air-to-Air Plate-Fin Heat Exchanger Without Dehumidification.” Applied Thermal Engineering, 143, pp. 137-148.

Conference Proceedings

• S. Anbarasu, K. Hinkelman, W. Zuo. 2022. “Tracing the Dependency of Water and Energy in Smart and Connected Communities through a Multi-Domain Modeling Framework.” The 5th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment (COBEE 2022). July 25-29, Montreal, Canada.
• Y. Lou, Y. Ye, W. Zuo, J. Zhang 2021. "Energy Prediction Impact of the Space Level Occupancy Schedule for a Primary School." Proceeding of the 17th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (Building Simulation 2021), September 1-3, Bruges, Belgium.
• J. Wang, K.N. Garifi, K.A. Baker, W. Zuo, Y. Zhang 2020. “Optimal Operation for Resilient Communities Through A Hierarchical Load Scheduling Framework.” 2020 Building Performance Modeling Conference and SimBuild, Virtual Conference, September 29-October 1.
• K. Hinkelman, S. Huang, J. Wang, J. Lian, W. Zuo 2019. “Enhancing the Implementation of a First-order Equivalent Thermal Parameter Model to Enable Accurate and Robust Building Thermal Response Prediction.” Proceeding of the 16th Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association (Building Simulation 2019), September 2-4, Rome, Italy.
• W. Tian, J.W. VanGilder, M.B. Condor, X. Han, W. Zuo 2019. “An Accurate Fast Fluid Dynamics Model for Data Center Applications.” The Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electronic Systems (ITherm 2019), May 28-31, Las Vegas, NV. 
• Q. Wang, Y. Pan,  Z. Huang, W. Zuo, P. Xu 2018. “A Case Study of Simulation-Based PID Tuning Method for a Room Temperature Controller Using Uncertainty Analysis.” The 4^th Asia Conference of International Building Performance Simulation Association - ASim2018, December 3-5, Hong Kong. 
• X. Lu, Y. Fu, W. Zuo 2018. “Modeling of Smart Community Infrastructure Accounting for the Interdependencies among Energy, Transportation and Communication Networks.” 2018 ASHRAE Building Performance Analysis Conference and SimBuild (BPACS 2018), pp. 250-257, September 26-28, Chicago, IL.

Presentations

K. Hinkelman 2020 "A Modeling Framework to Evaluate Energy, Transportation, and Communication Interdependence in Smart and Connected Communities", American Modelica Conference 2020, September.

Workshop

J. Wang, S. Huang, W. Zuo 2020 "Cyber-Physical System Modeling using Modelica for Smart and Sustainable Communities", the free workshop on "Cyber-physical System Modeling using Modelica for Smart and Sustainable Communities" on September 18.