Assessment of the impact of occupants’ behavior and climate change on heating and cooling energy needs of buildings

• Published in: Energies (Basel) Vol. 13; no. 23; p. 6468
• Main Authors: Fajilla, Gianmarco, De Simone, Marilena, Cabeza, Luisa F., Bragança, L.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute 01.12.2020; MDPI AG
• Subjects: Behavior; Buildings; Climate change; Climate changes; Cooling; Cooling systems; Design; DesignBuilder; Emissions; Energy; Energy consumption; Energy efficiency; Energy needs; Engenharia Civil; Engenharia e Tecnologia; Green buildings; Heating; Literature reviews; Occupant behavior; Residential areas; Residential buildings; Schedules; Science & Technology; Temperature; Trends; Ventilation; Weather; Southern Europe
• ISSN: 1996-1073; 1996-1073
• DOI: 10.3390/en13236468

Energy performance of buildings is a worldwide increasing investigated field, due to ever more stringent energy standards aimed at reducing the buildings’ impact on the environment. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact that occupant behavior and climate change have on the heating and cooling needs of residential buildings. With this aim, data of a questionnaire survey delivered in Southern Italy were used to obtain daily use profiles of natural ventilation, heating, and cooling, both in winter and in summer. Three climatic scenarios were investigated: The current scenario (2020), and two future scenarios (2050 and 2080). The CCWorldWeatherGen tool was used to create the weather files of future climate scenarios, and DesignBuilder was applied to conduct dynamic energy simulations. Firstly, the results obtained for 2020 demonstrated how the occupants’ preferences related to the use of natural ventilation, heating, and cooling systems (daily schedules and temperature setpoints) impact on energy needs. Heating energy needs appeared more affected by the heating schedules, while cooling energy needs were mostly influenced by both natural ventilation and usage schedules. Secondly, due to the temperature rise, substantial decrements of the energy needs for heating and increments of cooling energy needs were observed in all the future scenarios where in addition, the impact of occupant behavior appeared amplified. This research was funded by the Calabria Region Government with the Gianmarco Fajilla's Ph.D. scholarship (POR Calabria FSE/FESR 2014-2020) grant number H21G18000170006. A part of this publication has received funding from Secretaria Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia (SENACYT) under the project code FID18-056. This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades de Espana (RTI2018-093849-B-C31 -MCIU/AEI/FEDER, UE). This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades -Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI, RED2018-102431-T). This work is partially supported by ICREA under the ICREA Academia program.