Coupling a Building Energy Simulation Tool with a Microclimate Model to Assess the Impact of Cool Pavements on the Building’s Energy Performance Application in a Dense Residential Area

Tsoka Tsoka,Theodosiou Theodosiou,Tsikaloudaki Tsikaloudaki

doi:10.3390/su11092519

Tsoka Tsoka, Theodosiou Theodosiou + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su11092519

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Apr 30, 2019
Citations: 16	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Abstract

Replacing conventional pavements with the corresponding high albedo ones constitutes a well-known technique to improve outdoor thermal environment of modern cites. Since most of the existing studies assess the impact of the high albedo pavements at the pedestrian’s height and with respect to thermal comfort, this study aims to examine the effect of the application of highly reflective pavements on the heating and cooling energy needs of a building unit, located inside a dense urban area. Aiming at a higher accuracy of the energy performance simulations, an integrated computational method between ENVI-met model, Meteonorm weather data generator and Energy Plus software is established, to consider the site-specific microclimatic characteristics of the urban areas. The analysis is performed both for the design and the aged albedo values as significant changes may occur due to aging process. The analysis revealed that the application of cool materials on the ground surfaces only marginally affects the energy performance of the examined building unit, both for the design and the aged albedo value; changes on the annual heating and cooling energy demand, for both albedo scenarios did not exceed 1.5% revealing the limited potential of cool pavements regarding the improvement of the energy performance of urban building units.

Highlights

The increased rates of urbanization and industrialization of the 20th and 21st centuries have dramatically changed the land use and cover of modern cities, affecting the citizens’ quality of life and lifestyle both in a positive and negative way [1]
The majority of the existing studies focus on applications of high albedo materials on the building roofs, whereas only a few have assessed the effect of highly reflective pavements on the buildings’ energy performance
The overall performance of high albedo pavements on the urban built environment should be assessed under a global perspective in which the achieved microclimatic improvements, the pedestrians’ thermal balance, and the urban buildings’ energy performance are accounted for

Summary

Introduction

The increased rates of urbanization and industrialization of the 20th and 21st centuries have dramatically changed the land use and cover of modern cities, affecting the citizens’ quality of life and lifestyle both in a positive and negative way [1]. Given that in the future, even higher urban Tair values are to be expected due to the ongoing climate change, contributing to the already existing worrying microclimatic issues [18,19], a great number of scientific studies have assessed the effect of various strategies towards the improvement of the urban thermal environment [20,21] To this aim, one of the most commonly examined mitigation and adaption strategies involves the application of materials presenting high albedo and high infrared emittance on the urban ground surfaces, reported as ‘cool materials’ [22,23].

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