Micro- climate adaptation of whole building energy simulation in large complexes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the cooling demand during a summer day over a large city area before and after bioclimatic interventions in outdoor spaces by using whole building thermal simulation. This kind of interventions ultimately leads to a microclimatic change in a city. Prediction of microclimate data for a whole day in a large area due to changes in outdoor spaces is time and cost demanding. A model for prediction of hourly microclimatic data in a region for a whole day by employing Fourier analysis of past (measured) and future (simulated from a CFD analysis) microclimate data of a limited period (sunlight hours) was also developed. The whole building energy simulation software TAS-EDSL was applied for a quite large built space (∼500m×500m), for simultaneous simulations in all buildings in the area, and took into account detailed building construction data, mutual shading between buildings and local climatic conditions. In this context, strategies and practices that a building complex should follow in the future in relation to climate change could be investigated. Simulation estimations of cooling loads of building spaces were related to buildings’ age, orientation and height. Main outcome of the study was the ability to assess building energy performance due to exterior micro- climate improvement, simultaneously, for about 200 buildings.