Conference Paper

Proceedings of Building Simulation 2021: 17th Conference of IBPSA

Integrating Climate Change with Urban Building Energy Modeling: Case of A Commercial Building Stock

Rezvan Mohammadiziazi, Melissa M. Bilec
University of Pittsburgh,United States of America

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26868/25222708.2021.30869
Abstract: Increasing attention to environmental challenges such as climate change has inspired cities to establish goals and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector. Understanding building energy performance at an urban scale is imperative for successful planning and implementation of energy policies. Currently, the majority of studies have focused on energy performance of reference buildings under climate change, which increases uncertainty when results are scaled to an urban area. This paper aims to fill this gap by coupling an urban building energy model, developed based on actual characteristics of the commercial building stock of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., with climate change science to estimate the total energy use, as well as more specific heating and cooling demands under different scenarios. Simulation results showed that cumulative energy use of the stock will decrease 3-11% for three years (2030, 2050, and 2080) based on different emissions scenarios. In addition, the heating and cooling demands will decrease (7-31%) and increase (0-16%), respectively under the different scenarios. It was found that the magnitude of the increase in cooling demands varies considerably according to building use type. These finding aids policy makers to determine energy policies or measures specific to building use type; for example, in this dataset a focus should be on public order and safety buildings.
Pages: 2094 - 2101
Paper: