Abstract
A further requirement of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) for the EU member states is to introduce energy performance certificates that are likely to become important in determining a building’s value and could potentially influence public perception of the ‘greenness’ of a building’s occupant. Therefore, in view of the legal, societal and financial drivers for reducing energy consumption, performance assessment and prediction using appropriate tools such as energy performance simulation programs is becoming increasingly important.
However, the weather data files used by energy performance simulation programs are derived from historic weather data and therefore at best can be used to predict performance under ‘present-day’ climate conditions and are not appropriate for future building performance assessment.
The New Norwegian technical requirements (TEK07) clearly state that mechanical cooling shall be avoided. The potential for passive cooling strategies in Norwegian climate has been found to be large. Determining the future performance of such office buildings under hot summer conditions is therefore of key importance.
The aim of this study was to produce a climate change weather file set that would be usable for a variety of simulation programs and is close to current industry standards.
The scope was to use and transform the results of existing climate change datasets so that they could be incorporated into standard weather file types.
The procedure of relating the baseline period to the climate change data to its simulated timeframe representing the years 1961–1990 is described.
Future weather data were derived that consist of a set of climate change data for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. The same 30 year periods were taken as basis representing the current meteorological ‘climate baseline’ used for generation of the majority of building performance simulation weather files.
However, the weather data files used by energy performance simulation programs are derived from historic weather data and therefore at best can be used to predict performance under ‘present-day’ climate conditions and are not appropriate for future building performance assessment.
The New Norwegian technical requirements (TEK07) clearly state that mechanical cooling shall be avoided. The potential for passive cooling strategies in Norwegian climate has been found to be large. Determining the future performance of such office buildings under hot summer conditions is therefore of key importance.
The aim of this study was to produce a climate change weather file set that would be usable for a variety of simulation programs and is close to current industry standards.
The scope was to use and transform the results of existing climate change datasets so that they could be incorporated into standard weather file types.
The procedure of relating the baseline period to the climate change data to its simulated timeframe representing the years 1961–1990 is described.
Future weather data were derived that consist of a set of climate change data for the 2020s, 2050s and 2080s. The same 30 year periods were taken as basis representing the current meteorological ‘climate baseline’ used for generation of the majority of building performance simulation weather files.
