Impact of climate change on comfort and energy performance in offices

This paper investigates the impact of a climate change scenario on comfort and energy performance in offices, in relation to the influence of building design and occupants. It focuses on a typical cellular office room in the context of Athens, Greece, as input for a parametric study using the building simulation software EnergyPlus. Three different building design variations are combined with two different occupant scenarios and a standard weather data set as well as the IPCC climate change scenario A2 for 2020, 2050 and 2080.Results are investigated from two different perspectives: For naturally ventilated buildings the evaluation is related to adaptive thermal comfort according to ASHRAE Standard 55 and EN 15251. And for mixed mode context the evaluation is focused on the resulting impact on final energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions, peak heating and cooling loads and the percentage of working time when the building is free-running.The results indicate a significant impact of the climate change scenarios on adaptive thermal comfort, and they indicate differences in evaluation between ASHRAE Standard 55 and EN 15251. The comparison of climate change, building design and occupant scenarios indicates that building design is the key to thermal comfort optimisation, whereas the major mitigation potential regarding energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is related to occupant behaviour.

► How climate change, building design + occupants affect comfort + energy performance.
► Study based on building simulation and focused on offices in a warm climate.
► Differences in ASHRAE Standard 55 and EN 15251 adaptive thermal comfort evaluation.
► CO2 emissions for mixed mode buildings increase up to 25% with climate change.
► Thermal comfort relates to building design, greenhouse gas emissions to occupants.