CLIMATE CHANGE FUTURE PROOFING OF BUILDINGS

Climate Change Future Proofing Of Buildings



Acknowledgement

Writing this thesis has been very demanding, challenging and time-consuming, but also remarkable, informative and above all fun. Nevertheless, it feels great to have finally completed my bachelor's or master's thesis and I am now looking forward to a nice relaxing period for recovering. It has been both advantages and drawbacks with the limited amount of earlier research conducted within this area, even though I faced serious troubles but sometimes the advantages of this research luckily were in my favor and have made this research both challenging and interesting. I would like to thank my supervisor _____________, professor at _______________University, who has been great in guiding my through this thesis, helping me through the difficulties I faced during the entire process and motivated me to work hard. Furthermore, I would like to thank all my friends, for their contributions by sharing their perceptions and opinions with me. Above all I would like to thank my family and teachers that provided me with valuable and constructive criticism.

Abstract

Simulation packages for predicting building performance in terms of energy and comfort are becoming increasingly important in the planning process. However, current industry standard weather files for building simulation are not suited to the assessment of the potential impacts of a changing climate, in particular summer overheating risks. In addition, no bespoke climate change weather files are readily available that can be loaded directly into environmental simulation software. This paper describes the integration of future UK climate scenarios into the widely used Typical Meteorological Year (TMY2) and EnergyPlus/ESP-r Weather (EPW) file formats and demonstrates the importance of climate change analysis through a case study example. The 'morphing' methodology published by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE) is utilised as a baseline for transforming current CIBSE Test Reference Years (TRY) and Design Summer Years (DSY) into climate change weather years. A tool is presented that allows generation of TMY2/EPW files from this 'morphed' data and addresses the requirements related to solar irradiation, temperature, humidity and daylighting beyond the parameters provided by CIBSE weather years. Simulations of a case study building highlight the potential impact of climate change on future summer overheating hours inside naturally ventilated buildings.

TABLE OF CONTENT

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION5

Background5

Rationale6

Problem Statement6

Aims and Objectives7

Key Questions7

Research Methodology8

Success of research8

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW9

Overview9

Drivers for climate change performance assessment of buildings11

Determining the Requirements for Climate Change Weather Files12

Weather files used in simulation packages14

Global and regional climate change models15

CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY19

Background19

Research Method19

Case Study Evaluation20

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND ANALYSIS21

Faraday Tower case study building21

Measured summer performance of the Faraday Tower21

Faraday Tower refurbishment prospects26

Simulated summer performance of the Faraday Tower27

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION34

Conclusions34

REFERENCES36

BIBLIOGRAPHY38

APPENDIX44

Tables44

Figures56

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

Background

Man-made emissions be it from buildings, business, agriculture or transport are now commonly accepted to be the main cause of the global warming trend which is currently being experienced. Predictions published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) indicate an increase in global average surface temperature in different scenario ranges of ...