Analysis of heating and cooling periods in Budapest using station data

Abstract

The built environment has a very complex role in cities. On the one hand, various urban climatological phenomena are caused and influenced by buildings (e.g., urban heat island effect, local wind conditions, air pollution). On the other hand, buildings are important contributors to energy use via heating and cooling, e.g. they account for about 40% of total energy consumption on average in Europe. Daily average outdoor temperature is taken into account to design the heating and cooling systems of residential, commercial, or office buildings. That is why we analyzed the available temperature time series of the capital of Hungary, Budapest for the period between 1901 and 2019. The aims of this study are (i) to investigate the changes in temperature data series that influence building energy design parameters, (ii) to analyze the heating and cooling periods in the last 119 years based on different definitions, and (iii) to define a third (transitional) period between the heating and cooling periods. Based on the results, it can be concluded that the variability of warm days is smaller than that of cold days, consequently, the optimal design of heating systems is a greater challenge compared to cooling systems. Furthermore, the length of the temperature-based heating period decreased substantially, while the length of the cooling period increased as a consequence of overall regional warming.