Impacts of the 4.5 and 8.5 RCP global climate scenarios on nearly zero energy building performance: Sensitivity analysis about operative conditions of insulation materials and PV system degradation

Abstract

The paper gives a directive toward assessment of resilience of building designed to comply the nearly zero energy standard in the current conditions and also points out the gap in the existing approach for evaluating the effect that the climate changes could have on building material behavior and systems degradation. A method is introduced for evaluating how the variation of energy need and in-situ production can modify the energy balance under the representative concentration pathway of the intermediate (RCP 4.5) and the worst emissions scenario (RCP 8.5). The results for a case study indicate that under RCP 4.5 scenario, the polyethylene foam insulation has the higher increment of heating demand (+ 9.8%) instead the cooling demand decreases by −4.2% (RCP 8.5) and −4.6% (RCP 4.5). The innovative materials are less affected (<1%) by temperature variations. On the other hand, the PV system degradation causes the reduction of in-situ production from −6.9% (RCP 8.5) and −8.0% (RCP 4.5). However, the analysis of the hourly balance suggests that the building resilience would be not compromised. Indeed, by evaluating the ratio between the self-consumption and the total request, it increases compared to the current conditions of around 2%.