Effect of climate change on the energy performance and thermal comfort of high-rise residential buildings in cold climates

Abstract

Buildings now produce more than a third of global greenhouse gases, making them more than any other sector contributing to climate change. This paper investigates the effect of climate change on the energy performance and thermal comfort of a high-rise residential building with different energy characteristic levels, i.e. bylaw to meet current National Energy Code of Canada for Buildings (NECB), and passive house (PH) under two climate zones in British Columbia, Canada. SRES A2, RCP-4.5 and RCP-8.5 emission scenarios are used to generate future horizon weather data for 2020, 2050, and 2080. The simulation results show that for both bylaw and PH cases, the heating energy consumption would be reduced while cooling energy consumption would be increased. As a result, for the bylaw case, the total energy consumption would be decreased for two climate zones, while for PH case, the total energy consumption would be increased for zone 4 and decreased for zone 7. In addition, the number of hours with overheating risks would be increased under future climates, e.g. doubled in 2080, compared to the historical weather data. Therefore, efforts should be made in building design to take into account the impact of climate change to ensure buildings built today would perform as intended under changing climate.