IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/appene/v355y2024ics0306261923017245.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Building for tomorrow: Analyzing ideal thermal transmittances in the face of climate change in Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Rodrigues, Eugénio
  • Parente, Jean
  • Fernandes, Marco S.

Abstract

The climate will become hotter, and buildings will perform differently as outdoor conditions evolve. If the lowest energy demand is desired, it is crucial to determine the ideal thermophysical properties of the envelope over the buildings' life span. However, the scientific literature is still scarce in providing a compelling answer. Therefore, this study (i) determines ideal thermal transmittance values (U-values) for present-day and future climates, (ii) determines to what extent the thermophysical properties will need to change to remain ideal, (iii) identifies different trends of U-values over time, (iv) establishes a relationship between outdoor air temperatures, cooling and heating setpoints, and ideal U-values, and (v) proposes a set of design strategies according to each trend. The EPSAP generative design method was used to create a large dataset of residential buildings with random geometries and U-values to evaluate their energy demand for heating and cooling in EnergyPlus. The thermal performance of each building was evaluated for 30 locations in Brazil for the current period and two future timeframes (2050 and 2080). The Future Weather Generator tool was used to morph today's typical meteorological weather to match the EC-Earth3 data for the SSP5–8.5 scenario. Although climate change has a similar relative impact, its consequences differ over time in each location. The ideal U-values have different trends in different regions: (a) remaining unchanged in the future, (b) changing from being the highest possible to the lowest of the analyzed range in 2050 or 2080, and (c) being mid-range values in the present and with similar or lower values in the future climate. The impact on the thermal loads of maintaining the present-day ideal U-values also varies significantly in the future timeframes, from being nil to representing an increase reaching 30 % in 2050 (∆ 2.94 MW·h ± 0.06 MW·h) and 57 % in 2080 (∆ 6.05 MW·h ± 0.09 MW·h). Therefore, building design professionals need to use different strategies according to each region and consider how climate evolves during the lifetime of the building.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodrigues, Eugénio & Parente, Jean & Fernandes, Marco S., 2024. "Building for tomorrow: Analyzing ideal thermal transmittances in the face of climate change in Brazil," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 355(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:355:y:2024:i:c:s0306261923017245
    DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.122360
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261923017245
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.apenergy.2023.122360?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rodrigues, Eugénio & Fernandes, Marco S., 2020. "Overheating risk in Mediterranean residential buildings: Comparison of current and future climate scenarios," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 259(C).
    2. De Masi, Rosa Francesca & Gigante, Antonio & Ruggiero, Silvia & Vanoli, Giuseppe Peter, 2021. "Impact of weather data and climate change projections in the refurbishment design of residential buildings in cooling dominated climate," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    3. Dalbem, Renata & Grala da Cunha, Eduardo & Vicente, Romeu & Figueiredo, Antonio & Oliveira, Rui & Silva, Antonio César Silveira Baptista da, 2019. "Optimisation of a social housing for south of Brazil: From basic performance standard to passive house concept," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 1278-1296.
    4. Shen, Pengyuan & Braham, William & Yi, Yunkyu, 2019. "The feasibility and importance of considering climate change impacts in building retrofit analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 233, pages 254-270.
    5. Nunes, Gustavo & Giglio, Thalita, 2022. "Effects of climate change in the thermal and energy performance of low-income housing in Brazil—assessing design variable sensitivity over the 21st century," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    6. Artur Miszczuk & Dariusz Heim, 2020. "Parametric Study of Air Infiltration in Residential Buildings—The Effect of Local Conditions on Energy Demand," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-17, December.
    7. Cynthia Rosenzweig & David Karoly & Marta Vicarelli & Peter Neofotis & Qigang Wu & Gino Casassa & Annette Menzel & Terry L. Root & Nicole Estrella & Bernard Seguin & Piotr Tryjanowski & Chunzhen Liu &, 2008. "Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change," Nature, Nature, vol. 453(7193), pages 353-357, May.
    8. Rodrigues, Eugénio & Fernandes, Marco S. & Gomes, Álvaro & Gaspar, Adélio Rodrigues & Costa, José J., 2019. "Performance-based design of multi-story buildings for a sustainable urban environment: A case study," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 1-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Pajek, Luka & Košir, Mitja, 2021. "Strategy for achieving long-term energy efficiency of European single-family buildings through passive climate adaptation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 297(C).
    2. Yang, Yuchen & Javanroodi, Kavan & Nik, Vahid M., 2021. "Climate change and energy performance of European residential building stocks – A comprehensive impact assessment using climate big data from the coordinated regional climate downscaling experiment," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 298(C).
    3. Samuel Nii Ardey Codjoe & Vivian Adams Nabie, 2014. "Climate Change and Cerebrospinal Meningitis in the Ghanaian Meningitis Belt," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(7), pages 1-17, July.
    4. Sánchez, M.N. & Soutullo, S. & Olmedo, R. & Bravo, D. & Castaño, S. & Jiménez, M.J., 2020. "An experimental methodology to assess the climate impact on the energy performance of buildings: A ten-year evaluation in temperate and cold desert areas," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 264(C).
    5. Li, Wuyan & Li, Xianting & Gao, Yijun & Shi, Wenxing, 2022. "Thermo-economic evaluation for energy retrofitting building ventilation system based on run-around heat recovery system," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    6. Gift Nxumalo & Bashar Bashir & Karam Alsafadi & Hussein Bachir & Endre Harsányi & Sana Arshad & Safwan Mohammed, 2022. "Meteorological Drought Variability and Its Impact on Wheat Yields across South Africa," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-22, December.
    7. Forde, Joe & Hopfe, Christina J. & McLeod, Robert S. & Evins, Ralph, 2020. "Temporal optimization for affordable and resilient Passivhaus dwellings in the social housing sector," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).
    8. Mostafa M. Saad & Ramanunni Parakkal Menon & Ursula Eicker, 2023. "Supporting Decision Making for Building Decarbonization: Developing Surrogate Models for Multi-Criteria Building Retrofitting Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(16), pages 1-28, August.
    9. Francesco Fiorito & Giandomenico Vurro & Francesco Carlucci & Ludovica Maria Campagna & Mariella De Fino & Salvatore Carlucci & Fabio Fatiguso, 2022. "Adaptation of Users to Future Climate Conditions in Naturally Ventilated Historic Buildings: Effects on Indoor Comfort," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(14), pages 1-21, July.
    10. Shen, Pengyuan & Yang, Biao, 2020. "Projecting Texas energy use for residential sector under future climate and urbanization scenarios: A bottom-up method based on twenty-year regional energy use data," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    11. Mehmood, Sajid & Lizana, Jesus & Núñez-Peiró, Miguel & Maximov, Serguey A. & Friedrich, Daniel, 2022. "Resilient cooling pathway for extremely hot climates in southern Asia," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 325(C).
    12. Abdo Abdullah Ahmed Gassar & Choongwan Koo & Tae Wan Kim & Seung Hyun Cha, 2021. "Performance Optimization Studies on Heating, Cooling and Lighting Energy Systems of Buildings during the Design Stage: A Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(17), pages 1-47, September.
    13. Yue Wang & Yongchun Yang, 2024. "Analysis of the Heterogeneous Coordination between Urban Development Levels and the Ecological Environment in the Chinese Grassland Region (2000–2020): A Case Study of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Re," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(7), pages 1-28, June.
    14. Claesson, Jonas & Nycander, Jonas, 2013. "Combined effect of global warming and increased CO2-concentration on vegetation growth in water-limited conditions," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 256(C), pages 23-30.
    15. Yektansani, Kiana & Azizi, SeyedSoroosh, 2021. "Using Machine Learning to Predict Consumers’ Environmental Attitudes and Beliefs," 2021 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Austin, Texas 313902, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    16. De Masi, Rosa Francesca & Gigante, Antonio & Ruggiero, Silvia & Vanoli, Giuseppe Peter, 2021. "Impact of weather data and climate change projections in the refurbishment design of residential buildings in cooling dominated climate," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 303(C).
    17. Desalegn D. Serba & Reagan W. Hejl & Worku Burayu & Kai Umeda & Bradley Shaun Bushman & Clinton F. Williams, 2022. "Pertinent Water-Saving Management Strategies for Sustainable Turfgrass in the Desert U.S. Southwest," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-17, October.
    18. Arias-Rosales, Andrés & LeDuc, Philip R., 2022. "Shadow modeling in urban environments for solar harvesting devices with freely defined positions and orientations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    19. Licia Felicioni & Antonín Lupíšek & Jacopo Gaspari, 2023. "Exploring the Common Ground of Sustainability and Resilience in the Building Sector: A Systematic Literature Review and Analysis of Building Rating Systems," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-24, January.
    20. Im, Piljae & Joe, Jaewan & Bae, Yeonjin & New, Joshua R., 2020. "Empirical validation of building energy modeling for multi-zones commercial buildings in cooling season," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 261(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:appene:v:355:y:2024:i:c:s0306261923017245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.