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Abstract: Mandatory energy codes to curb energy use of residential buildings have been formally launched in China for more than two decades but little has been publicized in literature. Similar codes are not available for residential buildings in Hong Kong, but most residential buildings in Hong Kong, especially public housing estates, are HK-BEAM certified to demonstrate their compliance with regulatory and basic design requirements. Given HK-BEAM is internationally recognized and there are doubts about the effectiveness of the China codes, how the energy efficiency of the HK-BEAM certified buildings compare with buildings in compliance with the China codes is of interest to most building designers and policy makers. This paper describes how the energy efficiency of a case study building in compliance with the China codes compare with the one in compliance with HK-BEAM. The energy simulation by HTB2 and BECRES reveal that the case study building in compliance with the China codes is 51.1% better in energy use. In the study, the relative impact of each compliance criterion on energy use and cooling load has been quantified by sensitivity analysis. The sensitivity values indicate that energy use is most sensitive to air-conditioning operation hours, indoor design temperature, coefficient of performance (COP) of the room air-conditioners (RAC) units, and the envelop characteristics. The results of this study indicate that a HK-BEAM certified building cannot satisfy the China codes requirements. This provides good reference to the policy makers, the building owners, and to the China and Hong Kong Governments when considering reciprocal recognition of building energy codes. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Building Bio-Climatic Charts are proposed for different climate change scenarios. • Time-varying significance of nine design parameters in this century are provided. • Effectiveness of airtightness will increase up to 329% by the end of this century. • Cooling potentials of natural ventilation will significantly decrease up to 69%. • A holistic passive design can reduce the building annual cooling load by 56.7%. The application of passive design strategies is crucial at the early architectural design stage for building energy use minimization. However, the time-varying effectiveness of passive design strategies in responding to future climate change in hot and humid climates are rather limited in the literature. This paper aims to examine the dynamic effectiveness of passive design strategies for residential buildings in Hong Kong under the context of future climate change. Using the newly developed hourly weather data and adaptive comfort standard model, the dynamic effectiveness of viable passive design strategies for residential buildings are evaluated over time in the 21st century by plotting Givoni building bio-climatic charts (BBCC) and simulation-based sensitivity analyses in a validated EnergyPlus model. Results show that solar protection strategies are still the highly sensitive strategies for building energy performance and the effectiveness of external windows' airtightness is expected to increase up to 329% by the end of this century, whereas the cooling potential of ventilation utilization will significantly decrease over time. When the different combination of sensitive passive design parameters is implemented onto the baseline residential building model for different climate scenarios, the annual and peak cooling load can be reduced up to 56.7% and 64.5%, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]