Validation of the use of Australian input-output data for building embodied energy simulation

Traditionally, the simulation of buildings has focused on operational energy consumption in an attempt to determine the potential  for energy savings. Whilst operational energy of Australian buildings accounts for around 20% of total energy consumption nationally, embodied energy represents 20 to 50 times the annual operational energy of most Australian buildings. Lower values have been shown through a number of studies that have analysed the embodied energy of buildings and their products, however these have now shown to be incomplete in system boundary. Many of these studies have used traditional embodied energy analysis methods, such as process analysis and input-output analysis. Hybrid embodied energy analysis methods have been developed, but these need to be compared and validated. This paper reports on preliminary work on this topic. The findings so far suggest that current best-practice methods are sufficiently accurate for most   typical   applications,   but   this   is   heavily dependant upon data quality and availability.