Climate Change and Residential Energy Use in Europe: Assessing Future Energy Demands and Renewable Generation Potentials

In recent years, climate change and the corresponding expected extreme weather conditions have been widely
recognized as potential problems. The construction industry is taking various actions to achieve sustainable
development, implement energy conservation strategies, and provide climate change mitigation. In addition to
mitigation, it is crucial to adapt to climate change, and to investigate the possible risks and limitations of mitigation
strategies. Although the importance of climate change adaptation is well-understood, there are still challenges in
understanding and modeling the impacts of climate change, and the consequent risks and extremes.
This licentiate dissertation aims to assess the impact of climate change on the building energy performance and
indoor thermal comfort in 38 major European cities distributed in five difference climate zones. In addition, this study
also investigates the potential of renewable energy generation considering solar PV and wind energy generations.
To do this, an ensemble of multiple future climate scenarios with high temporal and spatial resolutions have been
used in this work, enabling us to account for climate variations and extreme events. A set of future climate big data
generated by RCA4 regional climate model (RCM) were used. In total, 13 future climate scenarios covering five
global climate models (GCMs) and three representative concentration pathways (RCP 2.6, RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5)
were used for the 90-year span of 2010-2099, divided into three 30-year periods (2010-2039, 2039-2069 and 2069-
2099).
Results show that extreme long and short-term climate events can cause significant changes in energy demand,
particularly peak loads during extreme events. This work provided more insights into the importance of considering
both long- and short-term variations of climate, including extreme events, when assessing future energy solutions
and the energy performances of building stocks.The availability of fine temporal and spatial resolution climate data
is crucial for assessing the plausible energy demands of buildings; however, it is important consider climate
uncertainties, multiple scenarios, and extreme climate events.Finally, the database of results for each city and
climate zone allows decision makers and designers to count for future climate uncertainties in the early stages of
building design.