Abstract
The latest climate change projections for Sweden suggest mean annual temperature increase of up to 5.5 °C by 2100, compared to 1961-1990 levels. In this study we investigate the potential impacts of climate change on the energy demand for space conditioning, overheating risk and indoor thermal comfort of a modern multi-storey residential building in Sweden. We explore climate change adaptation strategies to improve the building’s performance under the climate change conditions, including increased ventilation, solar shading, improved windows and mechanical cooling. The building is analysed under future climate projections for the 2050-2059 time frame, with representative concentration pathway (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The building’s performances under these future climates are compared to those under the historical climate of 1961-1990 and recent climate of 1981-2010. The results suggest that climate change will significantly influence energy performance and indoor comfort conditions of buildings in the Swedish context. Overheating hours and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) increased significantly under the future climate scenarios. Furthermore space heating demand is reduced and cooling demand is increased for the studied building. However, effective adaptation strategies significantly improved the buildings’ energy and indoor climate performances under both current and future climate conditions.
Highlights
The latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reiterated that increasing levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is destabilizing the earth’s climate system [1]
Transmissions and ventilation heat losses, and heat supply decreased under the future climate scenarios
This paper has examined the implications of projected changes in future climate for energy and indoor thermal comfort performance of a multi-storey residential building in Sweden
Summary
The latest assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reiterated that increasing levels of anthropogenic greenhouse gases (GHGs) in the atmosphere is destabilizing the earth’s climate system [1]. Anthropogenic activities are estimated to have caused between 0.8°C to 1.2°C warming of the earth’s climate since the pre-industrial period [2]. The International Energy Agency anticipates that global CO2 emission may increase by 20% by 2035 with the current trends in energy use and planned measures to mitigate climate change [9]. This might result in global average temperature rise of about 3.6°C relative to pre-industrial levels, much more than suggested in the Paris climate agreement [10, 11]. The Paris climate agreement suggests keeping temperature rise below 2°C and aiming for a temperature rise of 1.5°C [11]
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