Invisible walls: Exploration of microclimate effects on building energy consumption in New York City

Abstract

Reducing greenhouse gases from buildings forms the cornerstone of policy to mitigate the effects of climate change. However, the automation of urban-scale building energy modeling systems required to meet global urban demand has proven challenging due to the bespoke characteristics of each city. One such point of uniqueness between cities is that of urban microclimate, which may play a significant role in altering the performance of energy efficiency in buildings. This research proposes a way to rapidly collect urban microclimate data through satellite readings and climate reanalysis, enabling researchers to study the invisible walls of microclimate, which play a critical role in the buildings’ energy consumption.We demonstrate the utility of this data by composing an analysis against three years of monthly building energy consumption data from New York City. Our study highlights the significance of urban microclimates in decreasing the gas consumption of some buildings in New York by 71% and increasing the gas consumption in others by as much as 221%. Microclimates also seem to be responsible for the decrease of electricity consumption by up to 28.6% in regions or increases of up to 77% consumption in others.