Urban Climate, Human behavior & Energy consumption : from LCZ mapping to simulation and urban planning (the MApUCE project)

Abstract : The goal of the project is to propose a methodology to integrate quantitative energy and climate data in urban policies. In order to achieve this, the first objective is to obtain data from numerical simulations, focusing on urban microclimate and building energy consumption. Both aspects are physically coupled as domestic heating and air-conditioning are highly meteorologically dependent and heat waste impacts the Urban Heat Island. For this we develop a generic and automated method for generating Local Climate Zones (LCZ) for all cities in France at the scale of each urban block, including the urban architectural, geographical and sociological parameters necessary for the energy and microclimate simulations. Human behavior being a very potent level to address energy consumption reduction, a model of energy consumer behavior is also developed inside our coupled micro- climate building energy model, and is linked to the social information from the database. The second objective is to define vectors, understandable by urban planners, to include quantified energy-climate data to legal urban planning documents. This is done by analysis of legal and planning documents, of a few “best cases” and based on urban planning agencies requirements. The urban database, tools and models will be available as open-source.