Resilient residential retrofit: The value in modernizing homes and vehicles for climate change mitigation and adaptation

It is increasingly understood that there is no quick fix to the challenge of anthropogenic climate change. A reduction of carbon emissions in concert with adaptation to the changing risks requires integrated and context... [ view full abstract ]

It is increasingly understood that there is no quick fix to the challenge of anthropogenic climate change. A reduction of carbon emissions in concert with adaptation to the changing risks requires integrated and context specific options. The case of suburban residential lifestyles in a Southwestern Ontario Canada context is assessed here from this perspective. Specifically, the objective is to locate financially viable options for achieving drastic greenhouse gas emissions reductions while reducing the risk to livelihood. A computational case study of retrofit options for a household is considered through building energy modeling with a life-cycle assessment of emissions and life-cycle costing analysis. The results indicate a range of groupings of solutions exist with positive returns. Due to various policy incentives, demand reduction and a roof mounted solar photovoltaic system have returns of over 20% and 10% respectively. The carbon reduction is negligible however. Pairing these options with upgrades to the natural gas furnace and air conditioner reduce the return by a half or more but bring carbon reductions on the order of 10% to 30%. By upgrading the heating and cooling systems to various types of heat pumps, however, carbon cuts of almost 80% are possible with returns around 2.5%. The case study assessment is expanded to include backup power and automobile drive train options as the coupling of transport and home operations presents an emerging opportunity. The analysis shows that a shift to a battery electric vehicle and the use of backup power systems with heat pump heating systems and demand reduction can nearly eliminate vulnerability to the types of utility failures expected to increase with climate change induced storm events while also bringing a return as high as 4% and cutting the combined home and transport emissions by over 80%. This integration of reductions in demands for routine performance, and improved resilience during disruptions illustrates how countries like Canada – who’s carbon reduction target is 80% by 2050 compared to 2005 levels – may be able to approach achieving their Paris accord goals while also improving the resilience of their populace. Pathways to further development of integrated mitigation and adaptation modeling building on this study using a common graph model framework are discussed.