Impacts of climate change on building heating and cooling energy patterns in California (original) (raw)
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Impact of climate change heating and cooling energy use in buildings in the United States
Energy and Buildings, 2014
Global warming has drawn great attention in recent years because of its large impact on many aspects of the environment and human activities in buildings. One area directly affected by climate change is the energy consumption for heating and cooling. To quantify the impact, this study used the HadCM3 Global Circulation Model (GCM) to generate weather data for future typical meteorological years, such as 2020, 2050, and 2080, for 15 cities in the U.S. based on three CO 2 emission scenarios. The method was validated by comparing the projected TMY3 data using HadCM3 with the actual TMY3 data. By morphing method, the weather data was downscaled to hourly data for use in building energy simulations by EnergyPlus. Two types of residential buildings and seven types of commercial buildings were simulated for each of the 15 cities. This paper is the first to systematically study the climate change impact on various types of residential and commercial buildings in all 7 climate zones in the U.S. through EnergyPlus simulations and provide weighted averaged results for national-wide building stock. We also identified geographical dependency of the impact of climate change on future energy uses. There would be a net increase in source energy consumption by the 2080s for climate zones 1-4 and net decrease in climate zones 6-7 based on the HadCM3 weather projection. Furthermore, this paper investigated natural ventilation performance in San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle with improved natural ventilation model. We found that by the 2080s passive cooling would not be suitable for San Diego because of global warming, but it would still be acceptable for San Francisco and Seattle.
2009
This report was prepared as the result of work sponsored by the California Energy Commission. It does not neces sarily represent the views of the Energy Commission, its employee s or the State of California. The Energy Commission, the State of California, its employees, contractors and subcontractors make no w arrant, express or implied, a nd assume no le gal liability for th e information in this report; nor does any party represent that the uses of this information will not infringe upon privately owned rights. This report has not been ap proved or disapproved by the Cal ifornia Energy Commission nor has the California Energy Commission passed upon the accuracy or adequacy of the information in this report.
Assessing the impact of climate change on building heating and cooling energy demand in Canada
Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2021
In recent years, the building sector has received increasing attention with attempts to limit its energy consumptions and GHG emissions. In fact, buildings account for more than 30% of the overall energy demand worldwide, with projections for increases in this quota due to climate changes, urbanization, and higher living comfort standards. This study investigates the effects of climate changes on the heating and cooling energy demand of buildings in the most populated urban region in Canada, i.e. the city of Toronto in Ontario. Statistical and dynamical downscaling methods are utilized to generate several future weather files, starting from different baseline climates including the old Canadian Weather Year for Energy Calculation CWEC (representing the 1959–1989 period) and the new CWEC 2016 (representing the 1998–2014 period). In dynamical downscaling, a regional climate model is used to obtain a finer resolution than traditional general circulation models. The generated future weather data sets are then used for simulating the energy demand of 16 building prototypes. The simulation results show an average decrease of 18%–33% for the heating energy use intensity, and an average increase of 15%–126% for the cooling energy use intensity by 2070, depending on the baseline climatic file of use and building typology. The forecasted GHG emissions of each building prototype are then discussed. The results demonstrate the need to perform building modelling with sensitivity analysis of future climate scenarios in order to design more resilient buildings
Energy and Buildings, 2023
Climate change has a broad impact on different aspects of energy use in buildings. This study explores potential changes in future heating and cooling energy demands. Increasing comfort expectations resulting from events like the extraordinary summer heatwaves in Europe are accelerating this trend to develop future scenarios for a better understanding of the relationship between future climate changes and the cooling need. This study used future weather data to estimate the heating and cooling energy demands in the Belgian building stock by 2050 and 2100 under base and business-as-usual scenarios using a dynamic building simulation model. The study showed that heating energy demand in the base scenario is expected to decrease by 8% to 13% in the 2050s and 13% to 22% in the 2090s compared to the 2010s. Additionally, the cooling energy demand is expected to increase by 39% to 65% in the 2050s and by 61% to 123% in the 2090s compared to the 2010s. Retrofit strategies applied to different building types contribute to lower the increase in cooling energy demand in the business-as-usual scenario compared to the base scenario. The cooling energy demand for an average building in the business-as-usual scenario is expected to increase with a range of 25% to 71% in the 2050s compared to 45% to 92% in the base scenario and 77% to 154% in the 2090s compared to 72% to 198% in the base scenario compared to the 2010s. The findings of the study provide insights to mitigate the impacts of climate change on heating and cooling energy demands.
Climate Change Impacts on Building Energy Requirements
EasyChair, 2021
The population growth and the global warming would significantly affect the total building energy demand to maintain comfort conditions. Because of the global temperature rise, the heating load may decrease in some regions but considerably augment the cooling load. In addition, the energy required for cooling load is much higher than that of heating load. Thus, it is of quite importance to evaluate the future energy demand for built environment in order to put efforts in improving energy systems and efficiency, and to develop energy policies to mitigate and adapt climate change impacts. Present work consolidates the studies related to the climatic change impacts on built environment. The adopted methodology and predictions of building energy change are presented, critically analyzed and discussed in this work. Finally, the challenges related to the building energy requirement are presented.
Climate Change Effects on Heating and Cooling Demands of Buildings in Canada
CivilEng
Climate change is causing more frequent extreme weather events. The consequences of increasing global temperature on the operating cost of existing buildings, and the associated health, safety, and economic risks were investigated. Eight cities in Ontario, Canada, across climate zones 5 to 8, were selected for this study. Statistical models were employed to forecast daily temperatures for 50 years. The impact of climate change on buildings’ heating and cooling demands for energy was measured as changes in heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) compared to current design requirements. The results predict an increase in the demand for cooling and a decrease in that for heating within the next 50 years. A drop in the total HDD and CDD is shown which reflects a more comfortable outdoor thermal condition. Risk to human health attributable to the increase in global temperature is negligible.
Climate Change Impacts on Energy Demand of Madrid Buildings
Journal of Clean Energy Technologie
The future impacts of climate change on heating and cooling energy demand were investigate by building energy demand simulations by EnergyPlus model and hourly climate data for two IPCC scenarios: RCP 4.5 (stabilization emission scenario) and RCP 8.5 (little effort to reduce emissions). The climate scenarios have been downscaled from 1º to 50 meters of spatial resolution over city of Madrid. A Madrid typical 1km by 1km area of buildings is simulated using detailed meteorological information for each building produced by a dynamical downscaling process taking into account the 3D shape of the buildings, for years 2011 and 2100. Three types of buildings were identified: offices, hotels and apartments. The three prototypes are based on ASHRAE 90.1 Prototype Building Modeling Specifications but major characteristics have been adapted for each specific simulated building. We analyze the changes (%) in energy demand for the heating (gas) and electricity (HVAC system) for year 2100 versus 2011.The results show an increase in cooling demand around 10.5% by 2100 with RCP 8.5. The annual heating gas demand for office buildings will increase by 64.4% while the cooling energy demand will fall by 7.8% with the RCP 4.5 because future will be cooler that the present. The results show that climate change will have a large effect in the building energy demand and the used methodology can be used to design strategies to reduce the effects of climate change.
European Journal of Sustainable Development, 2021
The growth of urban population as the result of economic and industrial development has changed our place of living from a prosperous place to where the resources are carelessly consumed. On the other hand, long-term climate change, i.e. global warming, has had adverse impact on our resources. Certain resources are on the verge of depletion as the consequence of climate change and inconsiderate consumption of resources, unless serious measures are implemented immediately. The building sector, whose share in the municipal energy consumption is considerably high, is a key player that may successfully solve the problem. This paper aims to study the effects of climate change on the energy consumption of buildings and analyze its magnitude to increase the awareness of how construction can reduce the overall global energy consumption. A descriptive-analytical method has been applied to analyze valid models of energy consumption according to different scenarios and to interpret the conditi...
Applied Energy, 2014
Climate change has spatially heterogeneous impact on heating and cooling energy and fuel uses in building sector. Building energy and fuel uses are sensitive to other factors such as climate policy as well as climate change. The 50-state building model provides both insights at the regional level and potentially better national-level estimates. Climate change impact on building electricity use is critical, and needs to be incorporated in infrastructure planning.
Cooling Degree Models and Future Energy Demand in the Residential Sector. A Seven-Country Case Study
Sustainability, 2021
The intensity and duration of hot weather and the number of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, are increasing, leading to a growing need for space cooling energy demand. Together with the building stock’s low energy performance, this phenomenon may also increase households’ energy consumption. On the other hand, the low level of ownership of cooling equipment can cause low energy consumption, leading to a lack of indoor thermal comfort and several health-related problems, yet increasing the risk of energy poverty in summer. Understanding future temperature variations and the associated impacts on building cooling demand will allow mitigating future issues related to a warmer climate. In this respect, this paper analyses the effects of change in temperatures in the residential sector cooling demand in 2050 for a case study of nineteen cities across seven countries: Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Israel, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain, by estimating cooling degree days and hours (CDD...