Abstract:
Global climate is changing due to an increase in greenhouse gases. Climate change has increased the annual average temperature. Temperature is the most important weather component that determines the cooling and heating needs of a building. For a better understanding of future energy needs, it is important to estimate the climate of that region. With this knowledge, it will be easier to plan for that future or even design the buildings according to that climate. This study is performed to calculate the estimated change in annual energy demand for buildings in three cities of Pakistan. These cities were selected based on their different current climate. A global climate model HadCM3 was selected which is designed to represent future atmospheric changes. Morphing method was applied to the hourly data that was recorded over several years. Future hourly weather files were generated for 3 future time periods namely 2020, 2050 and 2080 and two building models were created. Building energy simulations were then performed on these two buildings for the base case and future scenarios. Simulation was repeated for all three cities with all 4 weather files (1 current and 3 Future). Results were compared for all the time periods. A decrease in the requirement for heating energy was observed. Cooling energy needs were predicted to have a significant increase. For some cases cooling is required for months that currently do not require cooling. Lighting and equipment loads are not a significant change from the present. Overall annual energy needs will increase because for Pakistan decrease in heating energy is not enough to balance the increase in cooling energy.
