Climate Change Effects on Belgian Households: A Case Study of a Nearly Zero Energy Building

Shady Attia and Camille Gobin
Additional contact information
Shady Attia: Sustainable Building Design Lab, Department UEE, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Université de Liège, Liège 4000, Belgium
Camille Gobin: Sustainable Building Design Lab, Department UEE, Faculty of Applied Sciences, Université de Liège, Liège 4000, Belgium

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 20, 1-11

Abstract: Overheating in residential building is a challenging problem that causes thermal discomfort, productivity reduction, and health problems. This paper aims to assess the climate change impact on thermal comfort in a Belgian reference case. The case study represents a nearly zero energy building that operates without active cooling during summer. The study quantifies the impact of climate change on overheating risks using three representative concentration pathway (RCP) trajectories for greenhouse gas concentration adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Building performance analysis is carried out using a multizone dynamic simulation program EnergyPlus. The results show that bioclimatic and thermal adaptation strategies, including adaptive thermal comfort models, cannot suppress the effect of global warming. By 2050, zero energy buildings will be vulnerable to overheating.

Keywords: future weather files; climate scenarios; thermal comfort; overheating; building simulation; global warming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5357/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/20/5357/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:20:p:5357-:d:427939

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().