Investigation of the Relationship between Total Embodied Energy and Cost for Commercial Buildings

Abstract

Embodied energy accounts for a large proportion of lifecycle energy utilisation in the building sector, and the estimation of this embodied energy is often difficult. Thus finding a general relationship between the embodied energy and the cost of buildings can give a shortcut to estimate the embodied energy content of buildings, which may also be of assistance to help reduce energy consumption.

In this study detailed embodied energy and cost data for four commercial buildings were obtained for two countries, namely China and New Zealand. The results suggested some correlation between embodied energy and the cost of individual building components for each building, as well as a correlation between total embodied energy and the cost of buildings. This research took both the embodied energy incurred by labour and labour costs into consideration. These two factors were shown to be important components of the analysis that cannot be neglected. The correlation between embodied energy and cost of individual building components was clear for buildings in the same country and was related to the national energy consumption per Gross Domestic Production (GDP).