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The effects of climate change on heating energy consumption of office buildings in different climate zones in China

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Abstract

Climate plays an important role in heating energy consumption owing to the direct relationship between space heating and changes in meteorological conditions. To quantify the impact, the Transient System Simulation Program software was used to simulate the heating loads of office buildings in Harbin, Tianjin, and Shanghai, representing three major climate zones (i.e., severe cold, cold, and hot summer and cold winter climate zones) in China during 1961–2010. Stepwise multiple linear regression was performed to determine the key climatic parameters influencing heating energy consumption. The results showed that dry bulb temperature (DBT) is the dominant climatic parameter affecting building heating loads in all three climate zones across China during the heating period at daily, monthly, and yearly scales (R 2 ≥ 0.86). With the continuous warming climate in winter over the past 50 years, heating loads decreased by 14.2, 7.2, and 7.1 W/m2 in Harbin, Tianjin, and Shanghai, respectively, indicating that the decreasing rate is more apparent in severe cold climate zone. When the DBT increases by 1 °C, the heating loads decrease by 253.1 W/m2 in Harbin, 177.2 W/m2 in Tianjin, and 126.4 W/m2 in Shanghai. These results suggest that the heating energy consumption can be well predicted by the regression models at different temporal scales in different climate conditions owing to the high determination coefficients. In addition, a greater decrease in heating energy consumption in northern severe cold and cold climate zones may efficiently promote the energy saving in these areas with high energy consumption for heating. Particularly, the likely future increase in temperatures should be considered in improving building energy efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

This study is financed by the Climate Change Special Funding (CCSF201423, CCSF201614) project of the China Meteorological Bureau.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tianjin Climate Center, Tianjin, 300074, China

    Fanchao Meng, Mingcai Li, Jingfu Cao & Mingming Xiong

  2. Institute of Building Environment and Energy Efficiency, China Academy of Building Research, Beijing, 100013, China

    Ji Li & Xiaomei Feng

  3. Laboratory for Climate Studies, National Climate Center, China Meteorological Administration, Beijing, 100081, China

    Guoyu Ren

  4. China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China

    Guoyu Ren

Authors
  1. Fanchao Meng
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  2. Mingcai Li
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  3. Jingfu Cao
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  4. Ji Li
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  6. Xiaomei Feng
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Correspondence to Mingcai Li.

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Meng, F., Li, M., Cao, J. et al. The effects of climate change on heating energy consumption of office buildings in different climate zones in China. Theor Appl Climatol 133, 521–530 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2206-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-017-2206-6

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