Exploring climate-change impacts on energy efficiency and overheating vulnerability of bioclimatic residential buildings under Central European climate

Pajek, Luka (author), Košir, Mitja (author)

Climate change is expected to expose the locked-in overheating risk concerning bioclimatic buildings adapted to a specific past climate state. The study aims to find energy-efficient building designs which are most resilient to overheating and increased cooling energy demands that will result from ongoing climate change. Therefore, a comprehensive parametric study of various passive building design measures was implemented, simulating the energy use of each combination for a temperate climate of Ljubljana, Slovenia. The approach to overheating vulnerability assessment was devised and applied using the increase in cooling energy demand as a performance indicator. The results showed that a B1 heating energy efficiency class according to the Slovenian Energy Performance Certificate classification was the highest attainable using the selected passive design parameters, while the energy demand for heating is projected to decrease over time. In contrast, the energy use for cooling is in general projected to increase. Furthermore, it was found that, in building models with higher heating energy use, low overheating vulnerability is easier to achieve. However, in models with high heating energy efficiency, very high overheating vulnerability is not expected. Accordingly, buildings should be designed for current heating energy efficiency and low vulnerability to future overheating. The paper shows a novel approach to bioclimatic building design with global warming adaptation integrated into the design process. It delivers recommendations for the energy-efficient, robust bioclimatic design of residential buildings in the Central European context, which are intended to guide designers and policymakers towards a resilient and sustainable built environment.

• Language: English
• Keywords: climate change, bioclimatic design, passive design, energy efficiency, overheating, building resilience, robustness
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FGG - Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Year: 2021
• Number of pages: 17 str.
• Numbering: Vol. 13, iss. 12, art. 6791
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-127706
• UDC: 699.8
• ISSN on article: 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su13126791
• COBISS.SI-ID: 67655427
• Publication date in RUL: 21.06.2021

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Sustainability
• Shortened title: Sustainability
• Publisher: MDPI
• ISSN: 2071-1050
• COBISS.SI-ID: 5324897

Licences

• License: CC BY 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Description: This is the standard Creative Commons license that gives others maximum freedom to do what they want with the work as long as they credit the author.
• Licensing start date: 16.06.2021

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: gradbene konstrukcije, gradbena fizika, podnebne spremembe, bioklimatsko načrtovanje, pasivni ukrepi, energijska učinkovitost, pregrevanje, odpornost stavb, robustnost

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P2-0158
• Name: Gradbene konstrukcije in gradbena fizika