Global warming likely compromises the annual performance of zero-energy buildings while the urban heat island effect exacerbates the impact

IF 10.5 1区工程技术 Q1 CONSTRUCTION & BUILDING TECHNOLOGY

Sustainable Cities and Society Pub Date : 2025-04-16 DOI:10.1016/j.scs.2025.106385

Yiman Zhao , Xiaotian Ding , Yifan Fan , Yongling Zhao , Jian Ge , Jan Carmeliet

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Abstract

Despite the significant impact of global warming and the urban heat island (UHI) effect on building energy demand, their combined effects are often overlooked, leading to inaccuracies in future energy performance evaluations of Zero-Energy Buildings (ZEBs). This study focused on an operational ZEB located in Virginia, USA, and investigated the impacts of global warming and UHI effect, using the Vatic Weather File Generator (VWFG) and Urban Weather Generator (UWG) models. Then, the influence of combined effect on the future energy demand is evaluated by Design Builder. Moreover, extreme climates are considered to assess the energy systems’ resilience. Results show that total energy demand for space heating and cooling is predicted to increase by 24% and 38% under the RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios from 2021 to 2100, driven by global warming and the UHI effect. For extreme climates under the RCP4.5 scenario, peak cooling and heating demands are expected to be 33% and 66% higher than the 80-year average, while rising to 39% and 71% under the RCP8.5 scenario, respectively. Furthermore, current climate-based designs are unlikely to enable renewable energy generation to meet zero-energy requirements by 2100. This framework is therefore essential for enhancing the accuracy and reliability of energy system design for ZEBs.

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全球变暖可能会影响零能耗建筑的年度性能，而城市热岛效应则加剧了这种影响

尽管全球变暖和城市热岛效应（UHI）对建筑能源需求产生了重大影响，但它们的综合影响往往被忽视，导致未来零能耗建筑（zeb）的能源绩效评估不准确。本研究以位于美国弗吉尼亚州的一个正在运行的ZEB为研究对象，利用Vatic天气文件发生器（VWFG）和城市天气发生器（UWG）模型，研究了全球变暖和热岛效应的影响。然后，通过Design Builder评估综合效应对未来能源需求的影响。此外，还考虑了极端气候来评估能源系统的恢复能力。结果表明：在RCP4.5和RCP8.5情景下，受全球变暖和热岛效应的影响，2021 - 2100年空间采暖和制冷总能源需求预计分别增加24%和38%；对于RCP4.5情景下的极端气候，峰值制冷和供暖需求预计将比80年平均水平高出33%和66%，而在RCP8.5情景下分别上升到39%和71%。此外，目前基于气候的设计不太可能使可再生能源发电到2100年达到零能耗要求。因此，该框架对于提高zeb能源系统设计的准确性和可靠性至关重要。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Sustainable Cities and Society Social Sciences-Geography, Planning and Development

CiteScore

22.00

自引率

13.70%

发文量

810

审稿时长

27 days

期刊介绍： Sustainable Cities and Society (SCS) is an international journal that focuses on fundamental and applied research to promote environmentally sustainable and socially resilient cities. The journal welcomes cross-cutting, multi-disciplinary research in various areas, including: 1. Smart cities and resilient environments; 2. Alternative/clean energy sources, energy distribution, distributed energy generation, and energy demand reduction/management; 3. Monitoring and improving air quality in built environment and cities (e.g., healthy built environment and air quality management); 4. Energy efficient, low/zero carbon, and green buildings/communities; 5. Climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban environments; 6. Green infrastructure and BMPs; 7. Environmental Footprint accounting and management; 8. Urban agriculture and forestry; 9. ICT, smart grid and intelligent infrastructure; 10. Urban design/planning, regulations, legislation, certification, economics, and policy; 11. Social aspects, impacts and resiliency of cities; 12. Behavior monitoring, analysis and change within urban communities; 13. Health monitoring and improvement; 14. Nexus issues related to sustainable cities and societies; 15. Smart city governance; 16. Decision Support Systems for trade-off and uncertainty analysis for improved management of cities and society; 17. Big data, machine learning, and artificial intelligence applications and case studies; 18. Critical infrastructure protection, including security, privacy, forensics, and reliability issues of cyber-physical systems. 19. Water footprint reduction and urban water distribution, harvesting, treatment, reuse and management; 20. Waste reduction and recycling; 21. Wastewater collection, treatment and recycling; 22. Smart, clean and healthy transportation systems and infrastructure;