Nayanika Bora
Doctor of Philosophy candidate
Construction, Life cycle assessment
Biography
Nayanika Bora has a background in Civil engineering as a part of her undergraduate degree from VIT University, India. Her passion for sustainability in built environment stems from her continuous interest in combating the climate change. This passion persisted since her engagement with the Smart Village Lab at the University of Melbourne, as a part of her undergraduate thesis as an exchange student from India. Her research involved in developing a framework for sustainable construction for the state of Assam. She then graduated from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in Master of Science in Engineering in Construction Engineering and Management.
She curated the ‘Sustainable Construction Practices’ for the MasterTrack certification course for the University of Michigan, during her graduate days. Post her graduation, she was actively involved in managing multi-million dollar commercial and healthcare projects in the Silicon Valley and Mid-Western region in the United States. Her interest in academics sustained during her time in industry that led her to step into research after her receival of the Melbourne Research Scholarship. Her doctoral research explores the life cycle greenhouse gas emissions implications of energy retrofitting the multi-storey residential stock in India. Through her research, she hopes to improve the environmental performance of the existing buildings in urban India.
Thesis
Analysing the life cycle greenhouse gas emission implications of energy retrofitting the multi-storey residential stock in India
The greenhouse gas emissions associated with the life cycle of a building are substantial. Residential buildings contribute to 22% of the total energy consumption globally. The energy demand in Indian residential buildings is rising rampantly and is expected to grow multi-fold in the upcoming years. The high density of urban population and poor energy efficiency of existing residential stock in India have resulted in considerable energy consumption. Considering the increment in population growth, business-as-usual scenario of building stock and energy codes predominantly focusing on new buildings, the carbon footprint of the current residential buildings will continue to surge exponentially. Conventionally, intervention and mitigation measures are emphasised in the operational phase of a new or an existing building. Unfortunately, the embodied energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with the building life cycle are consistently disregarded. Considering the exponential increase in energy consumption, incremental growth in urban population, and escalating cooling demand, it is imperative to implement energy efficient strategies in the existing building stock. Therefore, implementing energy efficient retrofitting approach to the residential stock is one of the most suitable approaches to combatting one of the primary causes of GHG emissions.
The characteristics of the building envelope comprising the roof, windows, doors, walls, and floors are one of the primary contributing factors in indicating the heat gain, loss, energy demand, and thermal comfort of the occupants. Energy efficient retrofitting strategies related to the building envelope aim to reduce the operational energy demand. Voluntary energy efficiency strategies, codes, and green building rating systems neither provide any energy retrofitting strategies for the residential stock nor account for the life cycle GHG emissions of buildings. This study aims to evaluate the life cycle GHG emissions implications of retrofitting the residential building stock of India to achieve minimum energy performance standards. The archetypal approach will be adopted to analyse the representative multi-family building archetypes in terms of low, mid, and high-rise buildings in urban India across four climatic zones. Streamlined life cycle assessment, along with dynamic energy simulation will be used to assess the life cycle GHG emission implications of the various energy retrofitting scenarios. This research will be the first study to adopt the archetypal approach in assessing the net life cycle GHG benefits of retrofitting the residential stock in India. This will lead to the identification of optimised energy retrofitting strategies for upgrading India’s multi-storey residential stock.