From Building Services to Process Loads: Whole-Building Utility-Calibrated Simulation of Operational Decarbonisation Limits in a UK Restaurant Retrofit
- Posted
- Server
- Preprints.org
- DOI
- 10.20944/preprints202606.0559.v1
Restaurants combine long opening hours, catering demand, kitchen ventilation, DHW and mixed-fuel cooking loads, making their decarbonisation different from generic commercial retrofit. This single-case study develops a whole-building utility-calibrated OpenStudio/EnergyPlus model for Beit El Zaytoun, a 655.82 m² restaurant in Park Royal, London. Monthly electricity and gas data for June 2024–May 2025 were used to anchor the baseline at whole-building level. Standalone and cumulative scenarios tested insulation, low-emissivity double glazing, LED lighting and controls, ASHP service scenarios and an 11 kWp PV array. Baseline demand was 413,895 kWh/yr, equivalent to 631.1 kWh/m²·yr and 75,020 kgCO₂e/yr. The best building-focused package reduced net imported energy to 314,734 kWh/yr and operational carbon to 56,700 kgCO₂e/yr, a retained 24.0% reduction on the source reporting basis. The model-derived residual process load, kitchen and catering gas plus kitchen and back-of-house electricity, remained 233,920 kWh/yr across building-focused scenarios. The Residual-Load Index (RLI) rose from 0.57 to 0.74; with ±15% process-load allocation uncertainty, the optimised RLI range was 0.63–0.85, so the post-retrofit balance remained process-load dominated. The case demonstrates a practical decarbonisation ceiling likely to recur in similar high-process-load hospitality premises: fabric, lighting, heat electrification and PV are necessary but insufficient without catering-equipment, cooking-fuel, kitchen-ventilation, refrigeration-control, sub-metering and demand-response strategies. The paper contributes whole-building utility-calibrated quantitative evidence and a transferable RLI metric for sub-sector-specific retrofit policy.