Estimates of the impact of extreme weather considering climate change on the cooling/heating load of high-speed railway station in China

Abstract

Global warming has intensified extreme weather events, significantly impacting the design and operation of building energy systems. In China, such extreme weather presents substantial challenges to the performance of building energy systems, particularly for rapidly developing public buildings like high-speed railway stations (HSRS). The heating and cooling systems in HSRS buildings have faced increasing strain due to these extreme weather events. This study proposes a novel method for generating extreme meteorological years (XMY). It examines the impact of climate change on XMY generation using ECMWF Reanalysis v5 (ERA5) meteorological reanalysis data. The influence of XMY on the cooling and heating loads of three typical HSRS buildings in China is also assessed. The results indicate that climate change has led to a continuous increase in the average annual temperature of XMY. The XMY derived from distant historical weather data no longer accurately reflects the impacts of climate change. Specifically, compared to typical meteorological years (TMY), the effects of XMY on peak load in the three typical HSRS range from −20 % to 20 %, with extreme high weather increasing peak cooling load by approximately 10.00 %. The effect of extreme weather on the annual total load of most HSRS ranges from −13.00 % to 14.00 %, with extreme high weather causing a maximum increase of 9.00 % in the yearly total load. Therefore, the impact of XMY should be considered in the design of the HSRS energy system, and the system capacity should be appropriately increased.