Rational selection of heating temperature set points for China's hot summer - Cold winter climatic region

Domestic heating in the 'Hot Summer-Cold Winter' climatic region of China attracts research attention for it is predicted to dramatically increase building energy consumption and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Determining the optimum heating temperature set point is an essential prerequisite for research, technology and policy development in this topic. This paper reviews instrumental and subjective research about occupants' thermal comfort and behavior in this climatic region, and advances a hypothesis as to why residents in the 'Hot Summer-Cold Winter' region are able to accept a lower temperature (16.5 °C) in winter than are predicted by the heat balance model (PMV/PPD) and ASHRAE's adaptive comfort model. The paper concludes by recommending heating temperature set point (17-18 °C) based on a lumped-parameter four-node steady-state model and a prediction about the heating mode that will be utilized in this region.