Research on the energy performance and indoor environment quality of typical public buildings in the tropical areas of China

Hainan province is the only tropical and island province in China, with the unique climatic and geographical features. It has a different energy performance in public buildings from those in the inland areas. This paper investigated the current situation of energy consumption of the sampled public buildings, including 26 hotels, 24 office buildings and 7 department stores, through analyzing utility billing data, on-site survey and measurement, and site operational records. The breakdowns of energy consumption found out that the electricity dominated the energy consumption for all the sampled buildings and the air conditioning system played a key role in the energy consumption of major building services. By analyzing the main factors for building energy consumption, the annual average energy use indexes were calculated to be 141.63 kWh/m2, 87.70 kWh/m2, and 166.95 kWh/m2 for hotels, office buildings and department stores, respectively. Besides, the comparison between Hainan province and other areas revealed that the building energy consumption of this tropical province was at a low level. Because indoor environment quality can influence the health and work efficiency of humans in buildings, field tests on the indoor environment quality were also carried out, and the performance of indoor environment quality was rated.

► Energy use indexes of 3 types of buildings in tropic area of China were studied.
► Breakdowns of the energy consumption by fuel types and major services were conducted.
► Main factors for building energy performance were analyzed.
► Indoor environment quality was rated by on-site tests.
► Characteristics of energy performance for tropic area of China were defined.