A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use
Climate, technologies, and socio-economic changes will influence future building energy use in cities. However, current low-resolution regional and state-level analyses are insufficient to reliably assist city-level decision-making. Here we estimate mid-century hourly building energy consumption in 277 U.S. urban areas using a bottom-up approach. The projected future climate change results in heterogeneous changes in energy use intensity (EUI) among urban areas, particularly under higher warming scenarios, with on average 10.1–37.7% increases in the frequency of peak building electricity EUI but over 110% increases in some cities. For each 1 °C of warming, the mean city-scale space-conditioning EUI experiences an average increase/decrease of ~14%/ ~ 10% for space cooling/heating. Heterogeneous city-scale building source energy use changes are primarily driven by population and power sector changes, on average ranging from –9% to 40% with consistent south–north gradients under different scenarios. Across the scenarios considered here, the changes in city-scale building source energy use, when averaged over all urban areas, are as follows: –2.5% to –2.0% due to climate change, 7.3% to 52.2% due to population growth, and –17.1% to –8.9% due to power sector decarbonization. Our findings underscore the necessity of considering intercity heterogeneity when developing sustainable and resilient urban energy systems.
Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use
Climate, technologies, and socio-economic changes will influence future building energy use in cities. However, current low-resolution regional and state-level analyses are insufficient to reliably assist city-level decision-making. Here we estimate mid-century hourly building energy consumption in 277 U.S. urban areas using a bottom-up approach. The projected future climate change results in heterogeneous changes in energy use intensity (EUI) among urban areas, particularly under higher warming scenarios, with on average 10.1–37.7% increases in the frequency of peak building electricity EUI but over 110% increases in some cities. For each 1 °C of warming, the mean city-scale space-conditioning EUI experiences an average increase/decrease of ~14%/ ~ 10% for space cooling/heating. Heterogeneous city-scale building source energy use changes are primarily driven by population and power sector changes, on average ranging from –9% to 40% with consistent south–north gradients under different scenarios. Across the scenarios considered here, the changes in city-scale building source energy use, when averaged over all urban areas, are as follows: –2.5% to –2.0% due to climate change, 7.3% to 52.2% due to population growth, and –17.1% to –8.9% due to power sector decarbonization. Our findings underscore the necessity of considering intercity heterogeneity when developing sustainable and resilient urban energy systems.
Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use
Wang, Chenghao (author) / Song, Jiyun (author) / Shi, Dachuan (author) / Reyna, Janet l. (author) / Horsey, Henry (author) / Feron, Sarah (author) / Zhou, Yuyu (author) / Ouyang, Zutao (author) / Li, Ying (author) / Jackson, Robert b. (author)
2023-10-18
Wang , C , Song , J , Shi , D , Reyna , J L , Horsey , H , Feron , S , Zhou , Y , Ouyang , Z , Li , Y & Jackson , R B 2023 , ' Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use ' , Nature Communications , vol. 14 , no. 1 , 6434 . https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41458-5
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
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