Abstract
This review paper organizes and summarizes the literature
regarding climate change impacts on future building energy
demand. The approaches used for the creation of future weather
climate and building renovation scenarios, as well as building
energy modeling at different scales, are evaluated. In general, it
can be concluded that future heating demand could decrease (7–
52%), while cooling demand could increase significantly (up to
1050%). The decrease/increase rates varied significantly
depending on the climate and case study building(s) considered,
with buildings and building energy systems located in extreme
climates being more sensitive to such changes. The main
uncertainty of the predicted increase/decrease rates can be
assigned to climate models and forecasted weather data.
Nonetheless, such forecast and risk assessment are necessary for
sustainable development of urban environment and associated
energy systems. Further development of dynamic large-scale
building energy simulation tools is required, along with the
development of large-scale building renovation measures and
strategies that take into account additional aspects (such as
economic and societal). Moreover, continuous efforts are required
in further climate models’ improvement and uncertainty reduction.
Keywords
Climate change
Building
modelling
Architectural
simulation
Heating demand
Cooling Demand