Climate Change Impacts on Office Buildings Performance: A Case Study of Philadelphia, USA

Abstract

Global warming and its impact on human activity, especially in buildings, has become a major concern in recent years. To study the impact of climate change on the built environment, the use of building simulation techniques together with forecast weather data are necessary. However, current building designs are dependent on reference year databases that are a representative of past weather observations and are not appropriate for modeling future weather conditions. In addition, the changing climate complicates building energy consumption projections. Therefore, it is necessary to develop analytical methods to model building performance under future climate scenarios. This study evaluates the energy performance of three vintages of large, medium, and small Department of Energy (DOE) reference office buildings under current and future weather conditions for Philadelphia. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fourth assessment report climate scenarios are used, and the results are compared to typical weather data. The impacts of climate change on energy consumption are presented, and potential mitigation strategies are discussed. The practical outcome of this investigation is not only to provide guidance for the development of standards addressing new building design, but also to promote improved adaptation and mitigation strategies in the current building stock.