Yingyue Li

PhD Student

UCL

Yingyue Li joined ERBE in 2023 after earning a master’s degree in architecture from Tsinghua University. She holds dual bachelor’s degrees in architecture from South China University of Technology in 2021 and Politecnico di Torino in 2020 (cum laude). Her previous research experience spans several areas, including urban climate and morphological design, energy management of flexible resources, building life cycle assessment, and urban micro-mobility transportation design.

Towards Energy Efficiency and Thermal Resilience in English Housing under a Changing Climate

Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme heat events. Buildings must therefore be designed not only for energy efficiency but also for resilience to disruptions such as heatwaves and power outages.

Yingyue’s PhD investigates how energy efficiency and thermal resilience can be jointly assessed and improved across the English housing stock. Her research first examines whether building performance simulation tools are suitable for high-resolution resilience assessment under winter heating interruptions and summer overheating conditions.

Building on this work, she has developed a large-scale EnergyPlus housing stock model based on the English Housing Survey (EHS) to assess energy efficiency, summer overheating resilience, and winter thermal resilience. The model is used to characterise current housing performance and identify trade-offs and co-benefits between efficiency and resilience.

Her ongoing research focuses on evaluating individual and combined retrofit measures to identify effective strategies for improving both energy efficiency and resilience, supporting the development of low-carbon and climate-resilient retrofit pathways for English homes.

Publications and Research Outputs:

Li, Y., Tsouknida, E., Collins, T., Bateson, A., Tang, R., Burman, E., 2026. Thermal resilience in the built environment: A critical review. Sustainable Cities and Society 138, 107180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2026.107180
Li, Y., Tsouknida, E., Bateson, A., Tang, R., Burman, E., 2025. Assessing thermal resilience and life cycle carbon impacts of adaptation measures in a net-zero residential building, in: Journal of Physics: Conference Series. IOP Publishing, p. 072014. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-6596/3140/7/072014
Li, Y., Elsarrag, E., Bateson, A., Tang, R., Burman, E., 2027. Assessing energy efficiency and thermal resilience in the English housing stock. 2027 ASHRAE Winter Conference, Chicago, IL, USA. (Under revision)