Large uncertainties in trends of energy demand for heating and cooling under climate change

Adrien Deroubaix,Paul-Arthur Monerie,Yohan Ruprich-Robert,Marie Camredon,Levi G Silvers,Johanna Ramarohetra,Benjamin Gaubert,Max Popp,Guillaume Siour,Inga Labuhn

doi:10.1038/s41467-021-25504-8

Abstract

The energy demand for heating and cooling buildings is changing with global warming. Using proxies of climate-driven energy demand based on the heating and cooling Degree-Days methodology applied to thirty global climate model simulations, we show that, over all continental areas, the climate-driven energy demand trends for heating and cooling were weak, changing by less than 10% from 1950 to 1990, but become stronger from 1990 to 2030, changing by more than 10%. With the multi-model mean, the increasing trends in cooling energy demand are more pronounced than the decreasing trends in heating. The changes in cooling, however, are highly variable depending on individual simulations, ranging from a few to several hundred percent in most of the densely populated mid-latitude areas. This work presents an example of the challenges that accompany future energy demand quantification as a result of the uncertainty in the projected climate.

Highlights

The energy demand for heating and cooling buildings is changing with global warming
Heating Degree-Days (HDD) and Cooling Degree-Days (CDD) calculated with the temperature of historical climate simulations have been validated against observations[17,18]
The advantage of HDD or CDD annual sums is that they can be compared on a global scale, regardless of the timing and length of local heating and cooling seasons

Summary

Introduction

The energy demand for heating and cooling buildings is changing with global warming. Using proxies of climate-driven energy demand based on the heating and cooling Degree-Days methodology applied to thirty global climate model simulations, we show that, over all continental areas, the climate-driven energy demand trends for heating and cooling were weak, changing by less than 10% from 1950 to 1990, but become stronger from 1990 to 2030, changing by more than 10%. The day-to-day variability in energy demand depends on temperature following a V-shape curve with a minimum related to human thermal comfort as well as other socio-economic and technological factors[9,10]. This minimum is found for a similar daily mean temperature around 16 °C for 35 countries in Europe[11]. Future changes in the energy demand for heating and cooling buildings through the twentyfirst century have been estimated using Degree-Days calculated with the temperature output from climate model simulations for the US15,17 and Europe[18] individually. A consistent global analysis of these uncertainties is still missing

Methods

Results

Conclusion