Abstract
Building energy need simulations are usually performed using input files that contain information about the averaged weather data based on historical patterns. Therefore, the simulations performed are not able to provide information about possible future scenarios due to climate change. In this work, future trends of building energy demands due to the climate change across Europe were studied by comparing three time steps (present, 2050, and -2080) in three different European cities, characterized by different Köppen-Geiger climatic classes. A residential building with modern architectural features was taken into consideration for the simulations. Future climate conditions were reached by applying the effects of climate changes to current hourly meteorological data though the climate change tool world weather file generator (CCWorldWeatherGen) tool, according to the guidelines established by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In order to examine the resilience of the building, the simulations carried out were compared with respect to: peak power, median values of the power, and energy consumed by heating and cooling system. The observed trend shows a general reduction in the energy needs for heating (–46% for Aberdeen, –80% for Palermo, –36% for Prague in 2080 compared to the present) and increase (occurrence for Aberdeen) in cooling requirements. These results imply a revaluation of system size.
Highlights
Over the several decades, a primary challenge for countries all over the world will be how to reduce the demand of fossil fuels
Values of the mean air temperature and standard deviation, the median air temperature, and the extreme air temperatures are derived from the weather files used as input to EnergyPlus
These parameters allow for the investigation of how the heating and cooling seasons will change in the future, with the consequences on energy needs described below
Summary
Over the several decades, a primary challenge for countries all over the world will be how to reduce the demand of fossil fuels. Over the past few years, the scientific community has tried to model future scenarios on regional scales in order to reveal reliable hourly data for meteorological quantities that affect energy performances in buildings [18,19,20] In these studies, climate files for different geographical areas were developed. The articles by Kalvalage et al and Shen used EnergyPlus with a future weather file for US cities that belong to different climatic zones for commercial buildings and office/residential buildings They agree on the tendency to a decrease the energy demand for heating and increase the energy demand for cooling.
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