Modeling County-Level Energy Demands for Commercial Buildings Due to Climate Variability with Prototype Building Simulations

Daniel L. Mendoza, Carlo Bianchi, Jermy Thomas and Zahra Ghaemi
Additional contact information
Daniel L. Mendoza: Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Carlo Bianchi: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Jermy Thomas: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
Zahra Ghaemi: Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA

World, 2020, vol. 1, issue 2, 1-23

Abstract: The building sector accounts for nearly 40% of total primary energy consumption in the U.S. and E.U. and 20% of worldwide delivered energy consumption. Climate projections predict an increase of average annual temperatures between 1.1–5.4 °C by 2100. As urbanization is expected to continue increasing at a rapid pace, the energy consumption of buildings is likely to play a pivotal role in the overall energy budget. In this study, we used EnergyPlus building energy models to estimate the future energy demands of commercial buildings in Salt Lake County, Utah, USA, using locally-derived climate projections. We found significant variability in the energy demand profiles when simulating the study buildings under different climate scenarios, based on the energy standard the building was designed to meet, with reductions ranging from 10% to 60% in natural gas consumption for heating and increases ranging from 10% to 30% in electricity consumption for cooling. A case study, using projected 2040 building stock, showed a weighted average decrease in heating energy of 25% and an increase of 15% in cooling energy. We also found that building standards between ASHRAE 90.1-2004 and 90.1-2016 play a comparatively smaller role than variation in climate scenarios on the energy demand variability within building types. Our findings underscore the large range of potential future building energy consumption which depends on climatic conditions, as well as building types and standards.

Keywords: building energy modeling; energy systems; energy demand; future climate; weather files (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G15 G17 G18 L21 L22 L25 L26 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 R51 R52 R58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/1/2/7/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/1/2/7/ (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:jworld:v:1:y:2020:i:2:p:7-89:d:388796

Access Statistics for this article

World is currently edited by Ms. Cassie Hu

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