Annual Report (2011-2012)
Building Energy and Environmental Technology Research Unit (BEETRU)
Division of Building Science and Technology, College of Science and Engineering
City University of Hong Kong
1. Executive Summary
In this academic year, there were a total of 22 team members in our research unit, including 6
academic staff, 8 research staff and 8 research students. One PhD student graduated in this year,
together with three new recruitments.
Our team members attended 9 conferences, workshops and seminars (including two distinguished
speeches in International Conferences). In addition, four internal research seminars were arranged for
university staffs and students. A total of thirty-seven (37) academic articles were published. These
include 29 SCI journal articles, 1 book chapter and 7 conference papers. 21 numbers of the SCI
publications are in the first class academic journals (ranked top 10% of the respective categories), plus
two others in the IEEE transactions. On average, our SCI publications in the year are 4.83 numbers of
articles per academic staff. The performance is among the top in the field of building energy and
environment worldwide.
We are also highly successful in research grant acquisition. As a whole, our academic staff gained five
(5) new external grants and four (4) internal grants as Principal Investigators, with a total award sum of
HK$ 3.58 Million equivalent. The research money is on average HK$0.6M per person-year as PI. We
also achieved in two major external grant projects as co-investigator, with a total award sum of HK$
3.44 Million. One new patent has been granted and another filed in this academic year, both were
registered in the United States. The two innovative products were displayed in the Shenzhen
High-Tech Exhibition in November 2011 for industrial promotion.
We have been active in academic exchange. Prof. Jianing Zhao from Harbin Institute of Technology
visited BEETRU in August 2011. Through a France/Hongkong joint research scheme, Prof. C. Menezo
from INSA Lyon of France came to visit us in February 2012, and in return Dr. T.T. Chow and Dr. Yu
Bai visited Lyon in June 2012. Dr. Chow and Dr. Bai also visited the Energy Research Institute of
Shandong Academy of Sciences in Jinan in the same month. Dr. T.T. Chow acted as a distinguished speaker
in the SOLARIS international conference held in Varanasi India, and as the Guest of Honor in the
opening ceremony of a low-carbon building project led by the India Institute of Technology, Delhi. He
was also the General Co-chair and Keynote Speaker of the international conference RSETE 2012 held in
Nanjing. Our Dr. K.F. Fong and Dr. Norman Tse also paid visits to Japan and the Mainland respectively
for academic exchange and research collaboration.
2. Team Members
The members of BEETRU include three main groups: (i) academic staff, (ii) supporting/research staff,
and (iii) research students, as listed in Table 1. In 2011-12, there were six academic staff, eight
research staff and eight research students. One PhD student graduated in this academic year, together
with three new recruitments.
1
Table 1. List of BEETRU members in 2011-2012.
Academic staff
Supporting/
Research students
Research staff
Dr. T.T. CHOW (Director)
Dr. Y. BAI
Yong CHENG
Dr. Apple L.S. CHAN
Mr. Y.C. CHAN
Chunying LI
Dr. Square K.F. FONG
Mr. Alan M.L. FONG
Hui LONG
Dr. Gongsheng HUANG
Dr. C.K. LEE
Yuanli LU
Dr. John Z. LIN
Dr. Z.W. LI
Ka-kui TSE
Dr. Norman C.F. TSE
Ms. Y.D. LIAO
Jinliang WANG
Mr. P. ZHOU
Weiqin WU
Mr. X. WANG
Ting YAO
3. Activities
3.1 PhD Examinations
Our research student Ms Chunying Li received her PhD entitlement on the topic “Performance
evaluation of water-flow window glazing”, through an oral examination in February 2012.
Dr. T.T. Chow served as external examiner in the following two PhD assessment panels:
(i) “Experimental development and simulation investigation of a photovoltaic-thermal hybrid solar
collector”, The National Institute for Applied Science of Lyon (INSA de Lyon), France, July
2011.
(ii) “An experimental and numerical study on the thermal environment in an air-conditioned sleeping
space”, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong China, March 2012.
3.2. Academic Exchanges
Two renowned academics, Prof. Jianing Zhao
from the Harbin Institute of Technology and Prof.
Christiphe Menezo from the INSA Lyon of France
visited BEETRU in August 2011 and February
2012 respectively.
For outgoing visits, Dr. K.F. Fong had an
academic visit to Prof. M. Okumiya of Graduate
School of Environmental Studies of Nagoya
University in Japan in November 2011. Dr. T.T.
Chow was invited as the Guest of Honor in the
Opening Ceremony of a Low Carbon Building in
Varanasi, India in February 2012. For the mainland
collaborations, Dr. Norman Tse visited the State Grid
Energy Research Institute in Beijing in March 2012. In
June 2012, Dr. T.T. Chow and Dr. Yu Bai visited the
Energy Research Institute of Shandong Academy of
Photo 1: Prof. Jianing Zhao (right 2) together with Dr.
Sciences (SDERI). They also visited the INSA Lyon of
Gongsheng Huang, Dr. T.T. Chow and Dr. Zhang Lin
France in the same month. (from left to right) at our project studio.
2
Photo 2: Prof. C. Menezo (left 2) at our Solar Photo 3: Dr. T.T. Chow (left 3) attended the opening
Laboratory together with our team members Ka-kui ceremony of the Indian Institute of Technology (Delhi)
Tse, T.T. Chow, and Hui Long from left to right.
low carbon building in Varanasi, India.
Photo 4: Dr. K.F. Fong (middle) visited the Photo 5: Dr. T.T. Chow (right 3) and Dr. Yu Bai (left 3)
solar-thermal air-conditioning system of an office met the leaders (Mr. Liu Xuejun (left 4), Ms Xu min
building in Nagaya, Japan.
(left 2) et al.) of the Energy Research Institute of
Shandong Academy of Sciences (SDERI) in Jinan.
3.3. Exhibition, Conferences and Seminars
The industrial projects “Power quality meter and method of waveform analysis and compression” and “Solar
Heat Absorbing Window”, developed by Dr. Norman Tse and Dr. T.T. Chow respectively, were
displayed in the Shenzhen High-Tech Exhibition in November 2011. Our team members also attended
the international/national conferences and technical seminars, as listed in Table 2.
Table 3 shows the research seminars arranged at CityU for research and technological exchange. The
seminars were open to all staff and students of the City University of Hong Kong.
3
Photo 6: Our PhD student Chunying Li presented her
research work in BS2011, the 12th IBPSA international
conference held in Sydney, Australia.
Table 2. List of our conference participation
Conferences
ASHRAE Annual Meeting
PVT Technical Seminar, National Institute
of Applied Science of Lyon
Energy Research Institute of Shandong
Academy of Sciences
IFME World Congress on Municipal
Engineering
RSETE 2012: the 2nd International
Conference on Remote Sensing,
Environment and Transportation
Engineering
Advanced Workshop on Building Energy
Efficiency, Chinese University of Hong
Kong
ASHRAE Workshop: Green and Sustainable
Building Design
SOLARIS 2012, International Conference
on Energy Security, Global Warming and
Sustainable Climate
Building Simulation 2011, the 12th IBPSA
International Conference
6th National Conference on Research
Supervision in Relation to Artificial
Environmental Studies
General Meeting of the IEEE Power and
Energy Society (PES)
Location
San Antonio,
USA
Lyon, France
Period
25-27 June 2012
Attendants
G.S. Huang (invited speaker)
19 June 2012
T.T. Chow (invited speaker)
Jinan, China
5 June 2012
T.T. Chow (invited speaker)
Helsinki,
Finland
Nanjing,
China
4-7 June 2012
K.F. Fong (guest speaker)
1 June 2012
T.T. Chow (keynote speaker)
Hong Kong,
China
30 May 2012
T.T. Chow (invited speaker)
Hong Kong,
China
Varanasi,
India
22 May 2012
K.F. Fong (invited speaker)
7-9 February
2012
T.T. Chow (distinguished
speaker)
Sydney,
Australia
Hong Kong,
China
14-16
November 2011
22-24 August
2011
Chunying Li (student
speaker)
T.T. Chow (invited speaker)
Michigan,
USA
24-28 July 2011
Norman C.F. Tse
Table 3. List of research seminars held at CityU
Speakers
Mr. Zhenyuan Xu
Presentation Title
Date
Multi-scale approach of hybrid solar components photovoltaic / 3 February 2012
thermal (PVT) and energy integration in buildings (BIPV)
Building automation system: infrastructure and network
9 August 2012
Dr. Y. Lu
Measuring the structure of visual fields in nursing units
Prof. C. Menezo
4
9 August 2012
4. Research grants and consultancy work
In this academic year, our academic staff members successfully gained five (5) new external grants and
four (4) internal grants as Principal Investigators, with a total sum of HK$ 3.58 Million equivalent.
One of these was from the National Natural Science Foundation of China Research Grants. We were
also successful in two major external grant projects as co-investigator, with a total award sum of HK$
3.44 Million. The details are in Table 4. A list of consultancy projects is given in Table 5.
Table 4. List of successful research grants
Research
Grant
NSFC
GRF/ECS
GRF/ECS
GRF/ECS
SRG
SRG
SRG
SRG
GRF ITF
France/
HK Joint
Research
Project Title
Analysis and enhancement of energy
performance of stratum ventilation,
Amount,
Duration
HK$
RMB
550,000
36
577,500
36
Dr Z. Lin (PI)
880,657
36
Dr. G.S. Huang (PI)
658,065
36
Dr K.F. Fong (PI)
180,000
24
Dr. Apple L.S. Chan (PI)
180,000
24
Dr. G.S. Huang (PI)
175,625
24
Dr. Norman C.F. Tse (PI)
180,000
24
Dr Lin Z, John (PI)
Dr Fong Kwong-fai (Co-I)
Dr Chow Tin-tai (Co-I)
Dr K.F. Fong (PI)
Hybrid system design of renewable
cooling and heating for buildings in hot
and humid climate
Performance evaluation and application
of stratum ventilation to Hong Kong
buildings
Development of a new approach of total
cooling load based chiller sequencing
control to deal with uncertainties
systematically
Development of integrated design of
solar air-conditioning system for
buildings
Developing new OTTV equation and
coefficient for commercial buildings
constructed with energy-efficient system
in Hong Kong
Robust model predictive control of VAV
terminal units for control performance
enhancement concerning nonlinearities
and constraints
Development of an experiment-based
novel demand side management system
for smart metering infrastructure
applications in building electrical
network to achieve energy efficiency
and power quality
Research on a New Grid-connected
Inverter Technology for
Building-integrated Microgrid
A new generation smart inverter for PV
applications
Dr. Norman C.F. Tse (Co-I) 1,142,560
36
Dr. Norman C.F. Tse (Co-I) 2,294,548 16
Green technology for commercial
building applications – from the Hong
Kong and France perspective
Abbreviations:
Investigators
Dr Chow Tin-tai (PI)
Prof. Menezo, C (PI)
60,000
GRF/ECS: General Research Fund / Early Career Scheme, RGC
SRG: CityU Strategic Research Grant
5
12
ITF: Innovation and Technology Fund
Table 5. List of consultancy work
Consultancy Project
Assessment of greenhouse gas emission and development of
measures for greenhouse gas control and removal
Client
Goodwill Management Ltd. To conduct assessment on energy efficiency and safety of
electrical and electronic products in accordance with
international standards
HOKLAS Cadre of Assessors, Hong Kong
Accreditation Service, Innovation and
Technology Commission, HKSAR
To conduct measurement to the energy saving function of the
electrical product in accordance with international standards
Study Report on the Energy Saving Function
of the Matpro Smart Extension Cord Unit
5. Research Outputs
5.1 Patents
One new patent has been granted and another filed in this academic year, both in the United States.
The details are in Table 6.
Table 6. Patents in 2011-2012
Title
Solar heat absorbing
window
Power quality meter and
method of waveform
analysis and compression
Country
USA (US 8,205,609)
Inventor
Dr. T.T. Chow
USA (US12/940,140) Dr. Norman C.F. Tse
Status
Granted in June 2012
Filed in November 2011
5.2 Publications
A total of thirty-seven (37) academic articles were published in the year, including twenty-nine (29)
SCI journal articles, one (1) book chapter and seven (7) conference papers. The productivity is 4.83
SCI articles per person-year. Of these, 21 of the articles were published in SCI journals which are
ranked within the top 10% of their respective categories, plus another two published in the IEEE
Transactions. Our performance is therefore outstanding in terms of both academic quality and quantity,
based on international standard.
SCI Journal articles
1.
2.
3.
Huang GS, Jordán F. Model-based robust temperature control for VAV air-conditioning system, HVAC&R
Research 18 (3), 2012, 432-445, June 2012.
Tse Norman CF, Chan John YC, Lau WH, Lai LL. Hybrid Wavelet and Hilbert Transform with Frequency
Shifting Decomposition for Power Quality Analysis, IEEE Trans. Instrumentation and Measurement,
61(12), 2012, 3225-3233.
Tse Norman CF, Chan John YC, Lau WH, Poon Jone TY, Lai LL. Real-time Power Quality Monitoring
with Hybrid Sinusoidal and Lifting Wavelet Compression Algorithm, IEEE Trans, Power Delivery, 27(4),
2012, 1718-1726.
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4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Chow Tin-Tai, Chan Lok-Shun, Fong Kwong-Fai, Tan Richard, Dong Zhaoting. Experimental study of
evacuated-tube solar water heaters in Hong Kong. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
Part A - Journal of Power and Energy, 226(4), 2012, 447-461.
Lin Z, Wang J, Yao T, Chow TT. Investigation into anti-airborne infection performance of stratum
ventilation. Building and Environment, 54, 2012, 29-38.
Pei Gang, Fu Huide, Ji Jie, Chow Tin-Tai, Zhang Tao. Annual analysis of heat pipe PV/T systems for
domestic hot water and electricity production. Energy Conversion and Management, 56, 2012, 8-21.
Fong KF, Lee CK. Towards net zero energy design for low-rise residential buildings in subtropical Hong
Kong. Applied Energy, 93, 2012, 686-694.
Chan ALS. Effect of adjacent shading on the thermal performance of residential buildings in a subtropical
region. Applied Energy 92 (April 2012), 516-522.
Fong KF, Lee CK, Chow TT. Comparative study of solar cooling systems with building-integrated solar
collectors for use in sub-tropical regions like Hong Kong. Applied Energy, 90(1), 2012, 189-195.
Chow TT, Long H, Mok HY, Li KW. Estimation of soil temperature profile in Hong Kong from climatic
variables. Energy and Buildings, 43(12), 2011, 3568-3575.
Lin Z, Lee CK, Fong KF, Chow TT. Comparison of annual energy performances with different ventilation
methods for temperature and humidity control. Energy and Buildings, 43(12), 2011, 3599-3608.
Chow Tin-Tai, Dong Zhaoting, Chan Lok-Shun, Fong Kwong-Fai, Bai Yu. Performance evaluation of
evacuated tube solar domestic hot water systems in Hong Kong. Energy and Buildings, 43(12), 2011,
3467-3474.
Chan ALS. Developing a modified typical meteorological year weather file for Hong Kong taking into
account the urban heat island effect. Building and Environment 46 (12) (December 2011) 2434-2441.
Fong KF, Lee CK, Chow TT. Improvement of solar-electric compression refrigeration system through
ejector-assisted vapour compression chiller for space conditioning in subtropical climate. Energy and
Buildings, 43(12), 2011, 3383-3390.
Huang GS, Chow TT. Uncertainty shift in robust predictive control design for application in CAV
air-conditioning systems. Building Services Engineering Research & Technology, 32(4), 2011, 329-343.
Fong, K.F., Lee, C.K., Yuen, S.Y., Chow, C.K., Simulation-optimization of solar-thermal refrigeration
systems for office use in subtropical Hong Kong. Energy, 36(11), 2011, 6298-6307.
Fong KF, Lee CK, Lin Z, Chow TT, Chan LS. Application potential of solar air-conditioning systems for
displacement ventilation. Energy and Buildings, 39(6), 2011, 2068-2076.
Fong KF, Lee CK, Chow TT, Fong AML. Investigation on solar hybrid desiccant cooling system for
commercial premises with high latent cooling load in subtropical Hong Kong. Applied Thermal
Engineering, 31(16), 2011, 3393-3401.
Fong KF, Chow TT, Lee CK, Lin Z, Chan LS. Solar hybrid cooling system for high-tech offices in
subtropical climate - Radiant cooling by absorption refrigeration and desiccant dehumidification. Energy
Conversion and Management, 52(8-9), 2011, 2883-2894.
Chan ALS. Energy and environmental performance of building façades integrated with phase change
material in subtropical Hong Kong. Energy and Buildings 43 (10), October 2011, 2947-2955.
Chan ALS. Developing future hourly weather files for studying the impact of climate change on building
energy performance in Hong Kong. Energy and Buildings 43 (10), October 2011, 2860-2868.
Huang GS, Model predictive control of VAV zone thermal systems concerning bi-linearity and gain
nonlinearity, Control Engineering Practice 19 July 2011, 700–710.
Huang GS, Chow TT. Uncertainty shift in robust predictive control design for application in CAV
air-conditioning systems, Building Services Engineering Research & Technology, 32 (4) November 2011,
329-343.
Huang GS, Sun YJ, Li P. Fusion of redundant measurements for enhancing the reliability of total cooling
load based chiller sequencing control, Automation in Construction 20 (2011) 789-798.
Lin Z, Lee CK, Fong KF, Chow TT. Comparison of annual energy performances with different ventilation
methods for temperature and humidity control. Energy and Buildings, 43, 2011, 3599-3608.
Lin Z. Effective draft temperature for evaluating the performance of stratum ventilation. Building and
Environment, 46, 2011, 1843-1850.
Tian L, Lin Z, Wang Q. Experimental investigation of thermal and ventilation performances of stratum
ventilation. Building and Environment, 46, 2011, 1309-1320.
Tian L, Lin Z, Liu J, Yao T, Wang Q. The impact of temperature on mean local air age and thermal
comfort in a stratum ventilated office. Building and Environment, 46, 2011, 501-510.
Lin Z, Yao T, Chow TT, Fong KF, Chan LS. Performance evaluation and design guidelines for stratum
ventilation. Building and Environment, 46, 2011, 2267-2279.
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Book chapter
Chow Tin-Tai, Dong Zhaoting. Energy performance of solar water heating systems in subtropical Hong Kong.
In: Essays on Environmental Studies, Chapter 14, ISBN: 978-960-9549-75-2, Athens Institute for Education and
Research, Athens, Greece, 2012, pp.139-150.
International conferences
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Huang GS, Jordán F. Model-based robust temperature control for VAV air-conditioning system. ASHRAE
annual meeting, June 25-27, 2012, San Antonio, TX, USA.
Fong KF, Lin Z, Chow TT, Chan ALS. Evaluation and enhancement of indoor environmental quality for
domestic communities in modern city. 2012 IFME World Congress on Municipal Engineering, Helsinki,
Finland, 4-7 June 2012.
Chow TT, Li CY. Sustainable building design with water-flow window. SOLARIS 2012, International
Conference on Energy Security, Global Warming and Sustainable Climate, Varanasi, India, February
2012.
Li Chunying, Chow Tin-tai. Water-filled double reflective window and its year-round performance.
CESCE 2011, 2nd International Conference on Challenges in Environmental Science and Computer
Engineering, Haikou, China, 14-15 Dec 2011, Vol. 11, pp. 1039-1047.
Chow Tin-tai, Li Chunying, Clarke JA. Numerical prediction of water-flow glazing performance with
reflective coating. Building Simulation 2011, the 12th IBPSA International Conference, Sydney, Australia,
14-16 November 2011.
Mok YK, Tse Norman CF, Lau WH, Leung MC. Experiment-based simulation for distortion behavior in
LV networks for microgrid modeling. General Meeting of the IEEE-Power-and-Energy-Society (PES),
24-28 July 2011.
So MK, Lau WH, Tse Norman CF, Tsang KF, Leung MC. Locating major harmonic current contributors
by Layered Knowledge Discovery in Database. General Meeting of the IEEE-Power-and-Energy-Society
(PES), 24-28 July 2011.
Reported by T.T. Chow, January 2013
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