A Study on Climate Change Impact on Cooling Energy Demand Patterns for an Existing Office Building

Abstract

AbstractEnergy demand for building heating, ventilation, and air conditioning account for a significant fraction of the global electricity demand. With global average temperatures projected to increase throughout the twenty-first century, building energy demand and consumption are also slated to increase. Even though the importance of climate effect on building energy management has been identified there has been few studies conducted to date to estimate the sensitivity of electricity demand for air conditioning to the climate variability, especially for the tropical weather conditions. The localized studies are of more importance in this regard, as the air conditioning load vary with the local ambient conditions. The impacts of climate change on building air conditioning energy demand for existing buildings can be reduced by establishing future energy demand patterns and using passive cooling strategies. Hence, this research aims to establish a relationship between the current energy demand patterns for air conditioning in a selected existing building and ambient temperature changes, thereby establish energy demand patterns. A suitable sample building was selected for the study and the indoor thermal comfort data, outdoor environment conditions and building energy consumption patterns are monitored and hourly data were collected. Climate conditions and the cooling load variability of the building were studied theoretically and the relation between climate conditions and energy consumption patterns were analysed. The indoor temperature and cooling load showed high sensitivity to the outdoor temperature with maximum of 25% cooling load increase for 1 °C increase in outdoor temperature. Also, it was predicted that the current cooling load of the building will increase by 40–55% in 2050. Further, the effects of the short-term meteorological variability on the cooling degree days are calculated and its impact on the energy demand was established for the selected building, which could be used for predicting future energy demand patterns with the help of different climate change models.KeywordsEnergy demandAir-conditioningClimate changeExisting buildingsThermal comfort