Urban Heat Island Effect on the Energy Consumption of Institutional Buildings in Rome

Abstract

Abstract. The urban heat island (UHI) effect is constantly increasing the energy consumption of buildings, especially in summer periods. The energy gap between the estimated energy performance -often simulated without considering UHI -and the real operational consumption is especially relevant for institutional buildings, where the cooling needs are in general higher than in other kind of buildings, due to more internal gains (people, appliances) and different architectural design (more transparent façades and light walls). This paper presents a calculation of the energy penalty due to UHI in two institutional buildings in Rome. Urban Weather Generator (UWG) is used to generate a modified weather file, taking into account the UHI phenomenon. Then, two building performance simulations are done for each case: the first simulation uses a standard weather file and the second uses the modified one. Results shows how is it necessary to re-develop mitigation strategies and a new energy retrofit approach, in order to include urbanization ad UHI effect, especially in this kind of buildings, characterized by very poor conditions of comfort during summer, taking into account users and occupant-driven demand. IntroductionInstitutional buildings like: offices, universities, schools, hospitals, etcetera, constitute a very important part of the building stock. In Italy, Many of these buildings were built in the XIX and in the first half of the XX Century, without specific measures to reduce energy consumption. As a result, the institutional buildings are responsible of almost the 20% of the total building stock energy demand in the country (REF IS NEEDED). Moreover, the consumption profile of institutional buildings is different from the residential buildings stock: in 2008 institutional buildings consumed more electricity than residential buildings (39% versus 22% of the total consumption) due to more intensive use of air conditioning (19% versus 1%), appliances and lighting (9% versus 3%) [1]. Italy has today a good share of renewable energy contribution to electricity production (about 40%). However, the high demand of electricity that institutional buildings have poses a challenge for energy demand and urban sustainability.

Spatial Configuration and Extent Explains the Urban Heat Mitigation Potential due to Green Spaces: Analysis over Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

“…These outcomes provide additional understanding of the varying findings from earlier studies, likely confounded by the different approaches used (e.g., Partial correlation analysis versus Pearson correlation). (6) The relationships between LST and landscape metrics could be affected by spatial autocorrelation. In general, the study highlighted that applying different statistical approaches, spatial scale, and abundance of UGS can appropriately determine the effectiveness of configuration metrics to predict the association between LST and UGS patterns.…”

“…On the other end, urbanization has also been associated with environmental and ecological stresses [2][3][4]. One of the widely recorded and evident impacts associated with urbanization is the increased temperature over the cities relative to the adjacent rural areas, or the urban heat island (UHI) [5,6]. Relative to the rural regions, urban areas have distinct morphology, geometry, and infrastructure that contributes to the UHI.…”

“…Relative to the rural regions, urban areas have distinct morphology, geometry, and infrastructure that contributes to the UHI. Changes in land use and land cover result in an abundance of built impervious surfaces and depletion of green vegetation covers, causing alterations in the surface energy fluxes [6][7][8][9], distribution and composition of biodiversity [10,11], increasing anthropogenic heat releases [12], and human health [13,14]. As a result, how to understand and mitigate these adverse impacts has become a key study topic in urban ecology, geography, and climatology [15][16][17][18].…”

Ambient temperature modelling from surface characteristics and associating urban morphology with thermal discomfort

“…An increase in UHIs also raises energy consumption due to more cooling needs, particularly during summers (Calice et al, 2017;Magli et al, 2015). Moreover, studies have reported how heat stress related morbidity and mortality soar with increasing UHI effect (Madrigano et al, 2015;Mohanaselvan & Bhaskar, 2014).…”

Energy Consumption of Institutional Buildings Considering the Urban Climate in Rome

“…In Mediterranean climates, heating or cooling needs are predominant, depending on climatic specific location. In Rome, a little prevalence of heating need has been found (Calice et al 2017). However, climate change affects the energy requirements of buildings in a way that a shift between heating and cooling needs has to be expected in the near future (Jenkins et al 2009, Sailor 2014, Santamouris 2014, Toledo et al 2016.…”