Energy and cost savings of cool coatings for multifamily buildings in U.S. climate zones

Abstract

While cool coatings have recently received much attention for building applications, their impact on building energy consumption strongly depends upon climatic conditions. Herein we evaluate the energy, cost, carbon, and interior comfort impact of cool coatings applied to a residential multifamily building across 32 climate zones in the United States by applying advanced cool coating properties to established building energy models. The model not only considers promising cool coating properties based upon recent experiments but also an ideal cool coating. Our calculations show that the ideal cool coating can achieve annual cooling energy savings of up to 6.64 kWh/m2 (Phoenix, AZ), annual net utility cost savings up to $1.16/m2 (Brawley, CA), and net annual carbon emission savings up to 7.7 % (Phoenix, AZ). We also estimate the change in interior temperature for buildings without space cooling systems and show that cool coatings make buildings in the warmest climate zones in the U.S. without space cooling more comfortable by 30 % to 50 % on a cooling degree days basis. Using analysis of variance, we examine the statistical relationships between building performance metrics and climatic parameters. The presented methodology enables evaluation of cool coating application to buildings in various climate zones across the world.