DEVELOPMENT OF QGIS PLUGIN FOR URBAN ENERGY SIMULATION USING 3D CITY MODEL AT THE CITY DISTRICT LEVEL

Abstract

In the context of climate change, the increasing demand for energy-efficient buildings and sustainable urban development has become a pressing issue due to the significant proportion of global energy consumption and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions attributable to the building sector. This requires a concerted effort to reduce its environmental impact, and Geographic Information System (GIS) applications are vital tools for achieving this by optimizing heat supply, calculating costs, analyzing profitability, and balancing CO2 emissions. This study aims to address the challenge of achieving energy efficiency and reducing CO2 emissions in the building sector, specifically at the district level. To this end, the research objective is to develop a QGIS plugin that can simulate urban energy demand at the district level by integrating 2D data with CityGML files and connecting QGIS to SimStadt software via API to visualize the simulated urban energy results in 3D on the Web Globe. The proposed plugin leverages the open-source QGIS tool QField to capture building conditions and connect 2D and 3D data on urban energy simulation. Supplementary to this, this plugin provides up-to-date information on energy demand, consumption, CO2 emissions, building component conditions via updating related tables in the database. Decision-makers can use this comprehensive and user-friendly tool to understand and act on the results, ultimately leading to a CO2-neutral district by 2045. The development of the QGIS plugin represents a significant step towards sustainable urban development and climate change mitigation by utilizing GIS applications for optimizing energy demand and reducing CO2 emissions in the built environment.