Discussion on “Providing renewable cooling in an office building with a Ground–Source heat pump system hybridized with natural ventilation & personal comfort systems”, energy and buildings 261 (2022), 111,982

Abstract

Climate change will increase the magnitude and frequency of high temperatures, resulting in higher cooling demands in buildings and a possible diminished efficacy of the passive solutions that could be used to limit that increased demand. However, building energy simulations are often performed with past weather data files, ignoring the effect of the changing climate.Portuguese building certification regulations use standard TMY (typical meteorological year) weather files that were updated with RCP4.5 predictions. These updated weather files were used to reassess the impact of climate change on a hybridized ground–source heat pump (GSHP) system with piles, natural ventilation (NV) and personal comfort systems (PCS). Cooling loads increased the most in Porto and the least in Faro, varying from 3 to 163%, with the exception of the GSHP–NV–PCS hybrid scenario in Lisbon, where the cooling load decreased 27%. This increased unbalance of the thermal loads resulted in a higher build–up of heat in the ground, decreasing the fraction of load that could be covered by the GSHP, especially in Porto. Despite the increase in final energy needs for heating and cooling, the GSHP–NV–PCS approach is a resilient solution to supply heating and cooling in a warming climate, as it can still reduce final energy consumption by more than 90%, relative to a non–hybrid approach.