A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
The comfort and energy impact of overcooled buildings in warm climates
Highlights Combining thermal sensation and preference of occupants is best to describe building overcooling which is found to be 17% of the data examined. Comfort temperatures on average are 1.5 °C warmer than the operative temperature in observed overcooled studies. Average reduction in cooling energy demand in warm climates is around 7% for every 1 °C rise in the setpoint temperature. Comfortable setpoint temperatures in warm climates are more effective in reducing cooling energy demand than common physical alterations.
Abstract Around 18% of global carbon emissions can be attributed to building heating or cooling, driven by the adoption of “international” thermal comfort standards such as ASHRAE-55, which imply an homogenous indoor environment. We argue that the importation of such standards to warm climates results in indoor cold discomfort due to “overcooling”: a phenomenon anecdotally recognised worldwide but not studied or defined systematically. Unlike under- or over-heating, overcooling is the purposeful over-expenditure of energy, that creates conditions of cold thermal discomfort. We examine data for warm and temperate climates from a global thermal comfort database spanning 27 countries with over 90,000 occupant responses to investigate overcooling of air-conditioned buildings. We suggest that overcooling is best defined by taking the intersection of thermal sensation and preference and, using this definition, we find that 17% of building occupants in the examined data can be classed as being overcooled. We estimate the cooling energy demand of overcooling imposed through the adoption of the ASHRAE-55 standard using computer simulations that move building occupants from being overcooled to comfortable. The results suggest around 15% of cooling energy demand could be saved through a simple upward adjustment of set-point temperatures by 2 °C in warm climates. Such an adjustment in the Global South, which contains the majority of the warm regions of the Earth, could have a dramatic impact on the evolution of future cooling energy demand which is expected to triple by 2050.
The comfort and energy impact of overcooled buildings in warm climates
Highlights Combining thermal sensation and preference of occupants is best to describe building overcooling which is found to be 17% of the data examined. Comfort temperatures on average are 1.5 °C warmer than the operative temperature in observed overcooled studies. Average reduction in cooling energy demand in warm climates is around 7% for every 1 °C rise in the setpoint temperature. Comfortable setpoint temperatures in warm climates are more effective in reducing cooling energy demand than common physical alterations.
Abstract Around 18% of global carbon emissions can be attributed to building heating or cooling, driven by the adoption of “international” thermal comfort standards such as ASHRAE-55, which imply an homogenous indoor environment. We argue that the importation of such standards to warm climates results in indoor cold discomfort due to “overcooling”: a phenomenon anecdotally recognised worldwide but not studied or defined systematically. Unlike under- or over-heating, overcooling is the purposeful over-expenditure of energy, that creates conditions of cold thermal discomfort. We examine data for warm and temperate climates from a global thermal comfort database spanning 27 countries with over 90,000 occupant responses to investigate overcooling of air-conditioned buildings. We suggest that overcooling is best defined by taking the intersection of thermal sensation and preference and, using this definition, we find that 17% of building occupants in the examined data can be classed as being overcooled. We estimate the cooling energy demand of overcooling imposed through the adoption of the ASHRAE-55 standard using computer simulations that move building occupants from being overcooled to comfortable. The results suggest around 15% of cooling energy demand could be saved through a simple upward adjustment of set-point temperatures by 2 °C in warm climates. Such an adjustment in the Global South, which contains the majority of the warm regions of the Earth, could have a dramatic impact on the evolution of future cooling energy demand which is expected to triple by 2050.
The comfort and energy impact of overcooled buildings in warm climates
Alnuaimi, Abdulla (author) / Natarajan, Sukumar (author) / Kershaw, Tristan (author)
Energy and Buildings ; 260
2022-02-10
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
Energy Saving Measures in Buildings in Warm Climates
| NTIS | 1984
Urban Vegetation and Microclimatic Comfort in Warm Climates
| Springer Verlag | 2021
Sustainable retrofitting of commercial buildings : warm climates
| TIBKAT | 2013
| Trans Tech Publications | 2013