Hashem Akbari (born 13 August 1949) is an Iranian-American professor of building, civil, and environmental engineering at the Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He specializes in research on the effects of urban heat islands, cool roofs and paving materials, energy efficiency, advanced integrated energy optimization in buildings while teaching courses in building sciences, energy, and energy efficiency.
Video Hashem Akbari
Brief biography
Hashem Akbari was born in Iran. He received his Ph.D. of Nuclear Engineering at University of California, Berkeley in 1979. he became a U.S. citizen in 1991. In 2009, he joined the Concordia University in Concordia University, Montreal, Canada where he has established a comprehensive laboratory to measure solar spectral reflectance and thermal emittance of common construction materials is established. Prior to joining the Concordia University, he was a senior scientist and the leader of the Heat Island Group at the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), University of California (from 1983 to 2009). As the founding leader of the Heat Island group, he has conceived, led, and supervised work in the following areas: heat-island quantification and mitigation, novel techniques in the analysis of energy use in buildings and industry, energy efficiency in buildings and industry-both in the United States and abroad. Akbari's contribution on global Urban Heat Island (UHI) study could be highlighted with initiating the UHI group in LBNL, initiating the study of cool roofs for UHI mitigation, and initiating researches of quantifying the relationship between building reflectivity and CO2 emission, organizing the U.S. Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC) and helping to found the Global Cool Cities Alliance (GCCA).
Maps Hashem Akbari
Urban Heat Island mitigation and application
In 1985, Akbari initiated the Heat Island Project at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL). The Heat Island Group is recognized as the international leader for identifying and initiating the studies of urban heat islands. With his leadership, the LBNL have formulated a process and established an infrastructure for implementing and supporting the U.S. EPA's Heat-Island Reduction Program. The heat-island mitigation and its technologies are being actively considered and pursued in many Canada, U.S., and international cities.
Heat Island Group
During many years of research at LBNL, under Akbari's leadership in the Heat Island Group, they have opened and expanded the field of heat island mitigation by researching many attributes of heat islands and their effects on energy use and air quality. The pioneering research of the Heat Island Group at LBNL has been the subject of hundreds of papers and books, and extensive press coverage (e.g., Newsweek, New Scientist, New York Times) and television programs (e.g., ABC News). The web site is http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/heatisland. With funding from NSERC, a comprehensive laboratory to measure solar spectral reflectance and thermal emittance of common construction materials is established in Concordia University. The major instrumentation include UV/VIS/NIR solar spectrometer, D&S reflectometer, D&S emissometer, and pyranometer albedometer.
Cool roofing research
Akbari's has conducted ground-breaking research on the potential for cool roofing and paving materials to reduce the urban heat islands effect. Cool roofs are effective heat-island mitigation technologies that save cooling energy use and result in a lower ambient temperature. In January 2001, Akbari led a study to modify the California Title 24 (Building Energy Standards) to offer credit for the installation of cool roofs. He continued that work, proposed modifications to adopt cool roofs as a "prescriptive" requirement for low-slope nonresidential buildings in California. The proposal was approved by the California Energy Commission in November 2003, and the code became effective in October 2005. Akbari worked on similar proposals for the adoption of cool roofs as "prescriptive" requirements for (1) nonresidential steep-slope roofs, (2) residential low-slope roofs, and (3) residential steep-slope roofs. In addition, he provided basis and assistance for the development of cool roofs standards in Florida, Chicago, Georgia, and Atlanta.
Akbari has developed two milestone standards: E1918 (Standard Test Method for Measuring Solar Reflectance of Small Horizontal and Low-Sloped Surfaces in the Field) and E1980 (Standard Practice for Calculating Solar Reflectance Index of Horizontal and Low-Sloped Opaque Surfaces). Recently, he led an ASTM task group to develop an ASTM standard for accelerated aging of roofing materials (ASTM D7897 - 15: Standard Practice for Laboratory Soiling and Weathering of Roofing Materials to Simulate Effects of Natural Exposure on Solar Reflectance and Thermal Emittance.) These standards are referenced in the development of standard programs at ASHRAE, CRRC, and LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). He also developed ASTM standards for solar reflectance and thermal emittance measurements. Akbari is a lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (2007 Nobel Peace Prize).
In addition to the standards development, Akbari also contributed to the industry for cool roofing materials development. In 2000, suitable cool white materials were available for most roof products, with the notable exception of asphalt shingles; cooler colored materials were needed for all types of roofing. To help fill this gap, Akbari led an effort (sponsored by the California Energy Commission) to work with the roofing industry and developed and produced reflective, colored roofing products.
Research into building reflectivity, CO2 emission
Quantifying the relationship between building reflectivity and CO2 emission could recover the effects of UHI on energy consumption and air pollution; it provides the intuitionistic results to policy makers, in order to pursue the policy development and the application of UHI mitigation solutions.
On a global basis, they estimate that increasing the world-wide albedo of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to offsetting about 100 Gt of CO2 emissions. Increasing the albedo of a m2 of surface area cools the world by 3x10-15 K equivalent to reducing CO2 emissions by 7 kg. These cool surfaces offsets have been adopted in the recent publication of Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change [1].
The UHI group in LBNL have monitored buildings in the California central valley with lightly colored, more reflective roofs and found that these buildings used up to 40% less energy for cooling than buildings with darker roofs. In a study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, they carried out a detailed analysis of energy-saving potential of light-colored roofs in 11 U.S. metropolitan areas, with resulting estimated savings potential of about $175 million per year (1998 USD) for the 11 cities. Extrapolated national energy savings from air conditioning was estimated at $750 (1998 USD) million per year. The savings from shade trees and vegetation is also estimated at $1B per year. The impacts of savings in health and lost work time owing to a projected 12% O3 reduction are three times larger than that cited for air conditioning above. Heat island mitigation technologies apply all around the world in both developed and developing countries. They estimate that the potential energy savings and health benefits from a worldwide implementation of heat-island mitigation technologies can save over $10B per year. They are working with manufacturers of roofing and paving materials to develop 'colored' solar-reflective materials for the marketplace, including both dark and light-colored cool shingles with reflectivity of up to 60%.
It should be noted that building standards in the states of California, Georgia and Florida now include credits for cool roof; other states are beginning to provide credit for cool roofs in meeting building standards as well. In 2001-2002 California instituted a $10M/year program to accelerate market penetration of cool roofs by offering rebates of $1.5-2 per square meter of roof area to install cool roofs. This program is continued by California utilities that currently are offering a rebate of $1 per meter square for installing cool roofs.
If the automobile industry switching from traditional paints to cool-colored pigments, air conditioning loads and related tail-pipe emissions will drop by about 5%, and fuel economy will improve by about 2%, and the first cost of the car will drop because the air conditioner can be downsized. Akbari is working with California agencies to quantify these estimates and partner with automobile manufacturers to make the paint switchover.
ASHRAE
Akbari spearheaded and worked with the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standards Committees of Standard 90.1: New commercial buildings; Standard 90.2: New residential buildings, and updated the standards to offer credits for roofs with high solar reflectance. The ASHRAE standards are typically adopted by states (with some modifications) as the state's energy efficiency codes and standards.
Meanwhile, he is a contributing member to ASHRAE Technical Committees: TC 1.4 (Control Theory and Application), TC 1.5 (Computer Applications), TC 4.7 (Energy Calculations), TC 7.1 (Integrated Building Design), TC 7.5 (Smart Building Systems), and TC 7.6 (Building Energy Performance). He is also contributing to writing of two chapters for ASHRAE Application Handbook: (1) Building Energy Monitoring and (2) Energy Use and Management. He published a guidebook for urban heat island mitigation.
Associations
He is one of the founding organizers of the Global Cool Cities Alliance (vice Chairman of the Board, Technical committee chair), the Cool Roof Rating Council (CRRC) (ExOfficio Board Member , International Committee Chair), and the European Cool Roof Council (ECPR) (ExOfficio Board Member).
UHI studies
His research has quantified the effect of cool roofs (increasing surface albedo) on cooling the globe. The heat-island mitigation program has also been expanding in other countries; e.g., city of Osaka, Japan has recently instituted a $1.7 B (170 B Yen) program of cool roofs, green roofs, and urban trees. This program is a direct result of the research and outreach of Akbari's group.
References
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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