Abstract
The evidences of the influence of climate change (CC) in most of the key sectors of human activities are frequently reported by the news and media with increasing concern. The building sector, and particularly energy use in the residential sector, represents a crucial field of investigation as demonstrated by specific scientific literature. The paper reports a study on building energy consumption and the related effect on indoor thermal comfort considering the impacts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 report about temperature increase projection. The research includes a case study in New York City, assuming three different scenarios. The outcomes evidence a decrease in energy demand for heating and an increase in energy demand for cooling, with a relevant shift due to the summer period temperature variations. The challenge of the last decades for sustainable design was to increase insulation for improving thermal behavior, highly reducing the energy demand during winter time, however, the projections over the next decades suggest that the summer regime will represent a future and major challenge in order to reduce overheating and ensure comfortable (or at least acceptable) living conditions inside buildings. The growing request of energy for cooling is generating increasing pressure on the supply system with peaks in the case of extreme events that lead to the grid collapse and to massive blackouts in several cities. This is usually tackled by strengthening the energy infrastructure, however, the users’ behavior and lifestyle will strongly influence the system capacity in stress conditions. This study focuses on the understanding of these phenomena and particularly on the relevance of the users’ perception of indoor comfort, assuming the IPCC projections as the basis for a future scenario.
Highlights
Concerning the Impacts of Climate ChangeSince 1970, a significant increase in the global mean temperature and atmospheric carbon concentration has been registered, the relation with climate change was assumed as a global challenge quite recently
The methodology framework reported in this paper focused on the effects of a renovation project involving an iconic 14-story residential building in Red Hook, Brooklyn, New York considering the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) climate future projections of +1.5 ◦ C overheating
For the purposes of our research objectives, which is the evaluation of the variation over time of the simulation results, we considered the use of the data in the software database for the years 1958 and 2017
Summary
Concerning the Impacts of Climate ChangeSince 1970, a significant increase in the global mean temperature and atmospheric carbon concentration has been registered, the relation with climate change was assumed as a global challenge quite recently. Despite many evidences of the interdependency of phenomena, the conventional approach to cope with climate change impacts is often locally tailored rather than considered in the global dimension. Climate change is much less relevant to the human condition than warming in cities [1] and it can strongly influence both energy production/distribution and demand in the built environment [2] while increasing the risks that extreme events can heavily affect power infrastructures [3]. The massive improvement of renewable energy solutions (RES), required to achieve the defined ambitious goals, is clearly linked to the energy demand for heating and cooling with relation to indoor and outdoor comfort conditions which are clearly affected by climate change impacts [6]. IPCC’s 2018 reports about climate change (CC) and buildings can be considered one of the most authoritative documents to properly approach the topic
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