Climate change is a global growing concern threatening our environment, health, economy. As the performance of buildings strongly depend on the climate they are exposed, this paper investigates how climate change may also impact building design, heating and cooling loads, cost-optimal efficiency measures, and renewable production. Eight locations (Stockholm, Milan, Vienna, Madrid, Paris, Munich, Lisbon, and Rome) are considered to highlight main differences among climates. Several weather datasets commonly used in building simulations are evaluated to see how climatic parameters have been changing over last decades. A future climate change scenario is developed and analyzed for the year 2060. Weather files are used to carry out building energy simulations in a baseline and NZEB residential building whose design is optimized using a cost-optimal approach.
The analysis indicates most currently available weather datasets cannot assure reliable results with building simulations. We find the energy balance in European buildings will significantly change under future conditions: heating will decrease by 38%e57%, while cooling will increase by þ99%e380% depending on location. In future NZEBs, efficiency measures to reduce cooling needs and overheating will be favored (e.g. roof insulation, window type, solar shading, envelope finishes), illustrating how improving energy efficiency will be more crucial within climate change scenarios. Compared to the baseline, more efficient NZEBs will enable renewable energy to much better cover building needs. There will also be advantages from reducing winter and summer peak demand, particularly when coupled to short-term electrical storage. When solar resource is limited in winter, more airtight, better-insulated NZEBs improve PV self-consumption.
D'AGOSTINO Delia;
PARKER Danny;
EPIFANI Ilenia;
CRAWLEY Drury B.;
LAWRIE Linda;
2022-01-10
PERGAMON-ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
JRC122616
0360-5442 (online),
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544221027286?via%3Dihub,
https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC122616,
10.1016/j.energy.2021.122479 (online),
