The role of adaptive thermal comfort in the prediction of the thermal performance of a modern mixed-mode office building in the UK under climate change

Abstract Climate change is becoming a serious issue for the construction industry, since the time scales at which climate change takes place can be expected to show a true impact on the thermal performance of buildings and HVAC systems. In predicting this future building performance by means of building simulation, the underlying assumptions regarding thermal comfort conditions and the related heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) control set points become important. This article studies the thermal performance of a reference office building with mixed-mode ventilation in the UK, using static and adaptive thermal approaches, for a series of time horizons (2020, 2050 and 2080). Results demonstrate the importance of the implementation of adaptive thermal comfort models, and underpin the case for its use in climate change impact studies. Adaptive thermal comfort can also be used by building designers to make buildings more resilient towards change. Keywords: adaptive thermal comfortclimate changeprobabilistic methodoverheating risk Acknowledgements The research described in this article is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant EP/G000344/1. The authors acknowledge the kind help of: Prof. Fergus Nicol (London Metropolitan University, UK) on the adaptive approach to thermal comfort; Dr David Jenkins (Heriot-Watt University, UK) and Mr Arani Mylvaganam (MTP, UK) on future equipment and lighting gains in non-domestic buildings; Dr Iain Macdonald (NRCC, Canada) on sensitivity analysis in building energy simulation; Dr Paul Bowyer (UKCIP, UK) and Dr David Cameron (SEPA, UK) on application of UKCIP02 scenarios; and Dr Stefano Tarantola (JRC, Italian) on use of SIMLAB.