Climate Change Effect on Building Performance: A Case Study in New York

Abstract

The evidences of the influence of climate change (CC) in most of the key sectors of human activities are frequently reported by the news and media with increasing concern. The building sector, and particularly energy use in the residential sector, represents a crucial field of investigation as demonstrated by specific scientific literature. The paper reports a study on building energy consumption and the related effect on indoor thermal comfort considering the impacts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 report about temperature increase projection. The research includes a case study in New York City, assuming three different scenarios. The outcomes evidence a decrease in energy demand for heating and an increase in energy demand for cooling, with a relevant shift due to the summer period temperature variations. The challenge of the last decades for sustainable design was to increase insulation for improving thermal behavior, highly reducing the energy demand during winter time, however, the projections over the next decades suggest that the summer regime will represent a future and major challenge in order to reduce overheating and ensure comfortable (or at least acceptable) living conditions inside buildings. The growing request of energy for cooling is generating increasing pressure on the supply system with peaks in the case of extreme events that lead to the grid collapse and to massive blackouts in several cities. This is usually tackled by strengthening the energy infrastructure, however, the users’ behavior and lifestyle will strongly influence the system capacity in stress conditions. This study focuses on the understanding of these phenomena and particularly on the relevance of the users’ perception of indoor comfort, assuming the IPCC projections as the basis for a future scenario.

Climate resilience and energy performance of future buildings in Nigeria based on RCP 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios

“…Also, the reliance on passive ventilation means, and shading of external windows as a strategy to reduce overheating and discomfort levels in buildings was emphasised by (Dodoo, 2020) for a modern multi-storey building in Sweden and by (Huerto-Cardenas et al, 2021) for an investigation on heritage buildings. Additionally, (Fabbri et al, 2020) suggest that strategies for new designs and renovations and Page| 359 retrofits will be centred on ventilation, thermal insulation and reflectance. The study predicts a considerable risk of multiple grid collapses and blackouts because of a surge in cooling energy demand.…”

“…Most architects and contractors replicate the same designs in different climate zones. In the past decades, the challenge with buildings was to improve indoor thermal comfort through increased fabric insulation; however, in the future, the major challenge will bother on how to reduce overheating risks to ensure acceptable comfort conditions (Fabbri et al, 2020) and reduced GHG emissions. To ensure the existing building stock adapts to changing climate, designers will centre strategies for new designs and renovations on air exchange, fabric insulation and optimisation of reflective surfaces (Fabbri et al, 2020).…”

“…As temperatures continue to rise, buildings in Nigeria will need increased cooling to keep a comfortable indoor temperature, which can increase energy demand and carbon emissions. Consequently, the demand for energy for cooling can lead to multiple power cuts and collapse on the electricity grid due to strain from system loads (Fabbri et al, 2020).…”

Exploring the Effects of Climate-Adaptive Building Shells: An Applicative Time-Saving Algorithm on a Case Study in Bologna, Italy

“…It can be said that the results are not detailed and comparable with the ones from more sophisticated simulation software. However, as demonstrated in previous studies [47,[73][74][75][76], the development and adoption of a quick, time-saving methodology is not aimed at replacing the use of professional simulation software, but at rapidly exploring alternative design scenarios and solutions during the early stage without investing a huge amount of time and resources to possibly address the design process towards the most promising alternatives, which can be analysed with software simulation at a further stage to obtain more sophisticated, precise and reliable results. This different approach represents a novelty in the current conventional process, considering the gap related to the time invested for simulation purposes which emerged from the literature review.…”

Assessment of Summer Overheating in Concrete Block and Cross Laminated Timber Office Buildings in the Severe Cold and Cold Regions of China

“…Recent studies have es that the temperature in Harbin and Beijing will increase by 5.5 and 2.7 °C, respecti 2100 [7]. As the climate changes, the performance of buildings will also change found that cooling energy consumption in office buildings does increase with warming [8][9][10][11]. Cooling energy consumption is expected to increase in all five are an increase of 18.5% in Harbin and 20.4% in Beijing [12].…”