The impact of climate warming on building energy demand in China

The impact of climate warming on building energy demand in China was investigated by means of whole building energy analysis model and hourly weather data. Four standard multi-story office building models, representative of four typical climate locations were constructed. For the time period 2050-2100, the climatic temperature scenario models for four typical cities was used that foresees a 2.7-4.2 degrees C rise in mean annual air temperature relative to the period 1961-1990 normal temperature and is thereby roughly in line with the climate change predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The simulation results show that the annual cooling energy demand for office buildings with internal heat gains of 20-30W/m(2) will increase by 26-58% while the heating energy demand will fall by 17-52% for the period 2050-2100. This study has also shown that the typical meteorological year (TMY) currently in use by building designers and HVAC engineers-in China will lead increasingly, to an overestimation of heating energy demand. Similarly, the use of TMY to compute cooling power and cooling energy consumption is likely to result in a progressive underestimation of the future demand. The future building energy demand is set to become a crucial design issue.