<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>With the higher pace of climate change, temperatures are rising each year, resulting in various effects on the thermal status of buildings. This paper takes the opportunity of analysing different scenarios of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using hourly weather data of future projections by implementing EPW weather files on <italic>EnergyPlus</italic> software dynamic simulations, coupled with architectural science methods of climate analysis, to test the effect of high and medium-high emission scenarios for the 2050s and 2080s future timelines on thermal comfort range, passive zones potential, and heating/cooling periods, as compared to the weather data from 2003–2017. Simulations results have shown a remarkable effect on the scale of daily cooling hours and monthly coverage under the high GHG emission scenario, expanding its range by 60 %, with 6 hours on summer peak days and 3 months/year, as well as an annual decrease in heating period by 33.3 %. Thermal comfort zones of tested periods have also witnessed an alternation, translating the effect on the passive cooling and passive heating zones’ way of variating, where the ranges are pushed towards their potential limits. Results have also demonstrated that if future weather data is not included in simulations, a weather-related performance gap is generated.</p></abstract>

With the higher pace of climate change, temperatures are rising each year, resulting in various effects on the thermal status of buildings. This paper takes the opportunity of analysing different scenarios of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions using hourly weather data of future projections by implementing EPW weather files on EnergyPlus software dynamic simulations, coupled with architectural science methods of climate analysis, to test the effect of high and medium-high emission scenarios for the 2050s and 2080s future timelines on thermal comfort range, passive zones potential, and heating/cooling periods, as compared to the weather data from 2003–2017. Simulations results have shown a remarkable effect on the scale of daily cooling hours and monthly coverage under the high GHG emission scenario, expanding its range by 60 %, with 6 hours on summer peak days and 3 months/year, as well as an annual decrease in heating period by 33.3 %. Thermal comfort zones of tested periods have also witnessed an alternation, translating the effect on the passive cooling and passive heating zones’ way of variating, where the ranges are pushed towards their potential limits. Results have also demonstrated that if future weather data is not included in simulations, a weather-related performance gap is generated.

Assessing the Performance Gap of Climate Change on Buildings Design Analytical Stages Using Future Weather Projections

Environmental and Climate Technologies

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

With the higher pace of climate change, temperatures are rising each year, resulting in various effects on the thermal status of buildings. This paper takes...

Assessing the Performance Gap of Climate Change on Buildings Design Analytical Stages Using Future Weather Projections

Published Online: Dec 14, 2020

Page range: 119 - 134

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rtuect-2020-0091

Keywords
Cooling-heating period, future weather, psychrometry, thermal comfort

© 2020 Ibrahim Alhindawi et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Assessing the Performance Gap of Climate Change on Buildings Design Analytical Stages Using Future Weather Projections

Published Online: Dec 14, 2020

Page range: 119 - 134

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/rtuect-2020-0091

KeywordsCooling-heating period, future weather, psychrometry, thermal comfort

© 2020 Ibrahim Alhindawi et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Cooling-heating period, future weather, psychrometry, thermal comfort