A Review and Characterization of Energy-Harvesting Resources in Buildings with a Case Study of a Commercial Building in a Cold Climate—Toronto, Canada

The present work provides a framework for the comprehensive assessment of energy-harvesting resources in buildings, encompassing environmental, anthropogenic, and recyclable sources. A review of resources and state-of-the-art energy-harvesting technologies is presented, including an outlook on the future theoretical limitations of their performance. The assessment framework is applied to a case-study commercial building located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The available resources are categorized into three orders of magnitude with respect to achievable power generation, with solar and wind in the first tier, elevator potential and fitness centres in the second tier, and sources including vibrations, occupant traffic, and thermoelectric conversion in the third. Situated in a mid-rise context, the total annual resource magnitude is found to be eight times greater than the building demand. However, only an overall 10% of the available resource is converted with the harvesting applications and efficiencies considered, resulting in a net energy deficit. It is shown that with maximum theoretical efficiencies, the conversion rate can reach 30% resulting in 151% surplus electrical generation for the building in question.