Abstract
The present work reports on a methodology to assess the climatic severity of a particular geographic region as compared to specific information available in the current regulations. The viability for each of the 387 municipalities in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura (Spain) is analysed, making a distinction between those with reliable climate reports and those for which no such information is available. In the case study, although the weather conditions in Extremadura are quite homogeneous according to the Spanish Technical Building Code (STBC 2015) classification and most areas are associated to zone C4 (soft winters and hot summers), the southern area in the region is associated to zone D1, similar to the north of Spain, where winters and summers are cool, which does not coincide with the actual climate in the south of Extremadura. The general climatic homogeneity in Extremadura was also highlighted with the new procedure, predominating zone C4, but unexpected or unreal climatic zoning was not generated, giving place to a consistent spatial distribution of zones throughout the region. Consequently, the proposed method allows a more accurate climatic zoning of any region in agreement with the Spanish legislation on energy efficiency in buildings, which would enhance the setting of thermal demand rates according to the actual climatic characterisation of the area in which a particular municipality is located.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Directive 2010/31/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council on the energy performance of building (2010). Official Journal of the European Communities
IDAE (2015) Instituto para la Diversificación y el Ahorro de la Energía: Condiciones de aceptación de Procedimientos alternativos a LIDER y CALENER. Calificación de Eficiencia Energética de Edificios. http://www.idae.es. Accessed 16 December 2014
Real Decreto 235 (2013) de 5 de abril, por el que se aprueba el Procedimiento básico para la certificación energética de los edificios
Sánchez F, Álvarez S (2004) Modelling microclimate in urban environments and assessing its influence on the performance of surrounding buildings. Energy Build 36(5):403–414
Sánchez de la Flor FJ, Álvarez S, Molina JL, González R (2008) Climatic zoning and its application to Spanish building energy performance regulations. Energy Build 40(10):1984–1990
Shepard D (1968) A two-dimensional interpolation function for irregularly-spaced data. In Proceedings of the ACM National Conference 517–524
STBC (2015) Spanish Technical Building Code http://www.codigotecnico.org. Accessed 02 February 2015
UNE-EN ISO 15927–6 (2009) Hygrothermal performance of buildings—calculation and presentation of climatic data—part 6: accumulated temperature differences (degree-days)
Wald L, Lefèvre M (2001) Interpolation schemes—profile method (a process based distance for interpolation schemes). SoDa Deliverable D5–1-1. Internal document
WMO (2008) World meteorological organization. Guide to meteorological instruments and methods of observation, 8th edn. WMO-No. 8, Geneva
Zelenka A, Czeplak G, D’Agostino V, Weine J, Maxwell E, Perez R, Noia M, Ratto C, Festa R (1992) Techniques for supplementing solar radiation network data. Vol. 1-3. IEA Report No. IEASHCP-9D-1, Bern, Switzerland
Acknowledgments
This work has been fully supported by the Extremadura University and the Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Materials Department.
Our thanks are due to Consejería de Fomento, Vivienda, Ordenación del Territorio y Turismo, Gobierno de Extremadura, Consejería de Agricultura, Desarrollo Rural, Medio Ambiente y Energía, Gobierno de Extremadura, Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET), Grupo de Termotecnia de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Sevilla and Agencia Extremeña de la Energía (AGENEX).
The authors are also very grateful to one anonymous reviewer of this paper for providing constructive comments which have contributed to improve the final version.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Moral, F.J., Pulido, E., Ruíz, A. et al. Climatic zoning for the calculation of the thermal demand of buildings in Extremadura (Spain). Theor Appl Climatol 129, 881–889 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1815-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1815-9