Effectiveness of phase change material in improving the summer thermal performance of an office building under future climate conditions: An investigation study for the Moroccan Mediterranean climate zone

Abstract

The rise in global temperature due to the climate change phenomenon would increase the severity of summer season in the future. The integration of phase change materials (PCM) into the building envelope has been considered as one of the most promising measures to improve the thermal performance of buildings. This paper aims at investigating the effectiveness of the PCM in improving summer thermal performance of buildings under the climate conditions of the next three decades. The moderate scenario RCP4.5 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was used to simulate future climate conditions. The present study was conducted for two building case studies: free-running and air-conditioned office buildings located in the north of Morocco (Mediterranean climate with hot summer). The findings have disclosed that an appropriate selection of the PCM melting temperature could enhance the thermal performance by 9.87 % for the free-running building and by 20.5 % for the air-conditioned building case over the whole building lifespan (30 years). A decade-by-decade analysis showed that the effectiveness of the optimum selected PCM would slightly decline over time. The research involved an economic analysis of the air-conditioned building case study. The latter led to calculating the maximum allowable cost of the PCM installation to achieve a payback period within the lifespan of the building. The findings of the present work can be used as guidelines to design office buildings integrated with PCM in the Mediterranean region.