Future climate change and building energy demand in Tianjin, China

This paper concerns the impacts of future climate change under two forcing scenarios on energy demand of commercial building and residential buildings with different energy-saving levels in Tianjin. Heating load of commercial building will decrease under the two scenarios in the next 90 years but increase of cooling load is found. All residential buildings will decrease heating load in the future 90 years. In particular, the decreasing rate of energy demand during 2011-2100 by the residential building slows down from the first-to the third-stage energy-saving levels. Additionally, the difference in energy demand between the two scenarios becomes smaller as the energy-saving level increases. These suggest that higher energy-saving levels are beneficial for decreasing not only energy consumption but also its sensitivity to climate change. Practical application: Climate change in the future causes the large and significant increase in cooling energy demand but decrease in heating energy demand. This would be helpful for the adjustment of energy use strategy by government. Also, the possible changes in future energy demands for heating and cooling will be of interest to energy providers. The responses of heating energy demand to the future climate change show large difference among the residential buildings with different energy-saving levels. This will provide useful information for policy makers and building industry managers on how to make appropriate measures keep occupants comfort and reduce energy use.