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Global warming has drawn great attention in recent years because of its large impact on many aspects of the environment and human activities in buildings. One area directly affected by climate change is the energy consumption for heating and cooling. To quantify the impact, this study used the HadCM3 Global Circulation Model (GCM) to generate weather data for future typical meteorological years, such as 2020, 2050, and 2080, for 15 cities in the U.S. based on three CO 2 emission scenarios. The method was validated by comparing the projected TMY3 data using HadCM3 with the actual TMY3 data. By morphing method, the weather data was downscaled to hourly data for use in building energy simulations by EnergyPlus. Two types of residential buildings and seven types of commercial buildings were simulated for each of the 15 cities. This paper is the first to systematically study the climate change impact on various types of residential and commercial buildings in all seven climate zones in the U.S. through EnergyPlus simulations and provide weighted averaged results for national-wide building stock. We also identified geographical dependency of the impact of climate change on future energy uses. There would be a net increase in source energy consumption by the 2080s for climate zones 1–4 and net decrease in climate zones 6–7 based on the HadCM3 weather projection. Furthermore, this paper investigated natural ventilation performance in San Francisco, San Diego, and Seattle with improved natural ventilation model. We found that by the 2080s passive cooling would not be suitable for San Diego because of global warming, but it would still be acceptable for San Francisco and Seattle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper identifies the impact of thermostat strategies on heating and cooling energy consumptions in buildings, thus suggesting the importance of a database for understanding the effect of thermostat settings and for deciding energy-conscious strategies. Using computer simulation, diverse thermostat strategies – change of setback period, change of set-point temperature, and change of setback temperature – were tested parametrically in a typical USA single-family homes, located in two climate zones, namely cold (Detroit, Michigan) and hot-humid (Miami, Florida). Analysis revealed that heating and cooling systems were significant energy-consuming components in each climate zone. Accordingly, heating energy in cold climate zones and cooling energy in hot-humid climate zones have potential for matchingly significant saving. Diverse thermostat strategies (changes of setback period, of set-point, of setback temperature) demonstrated their obvious impacts on such saving. In the cold climate in particular, the heating system showed the most significant energy-saving effect via proper thermostat strategies. Proper setback period, set-point and setback temperature need to be established to achieve energy efficiency in residential buildings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper investigates factors explaining the adoption of energy-efficient heating, cooling, window, and lighting technologies in U.S. commercial buildings. It presents multinomial logit models of technology adoption using the 2003 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey microdata set, examining, first, fundamental building components, and, second, energy-efficient adaptations. Key findings are that the choice of fundamental building components is strongly influenced by locational factors, the activities that are expected to take place in the building, and building-specific characteristics. Lighting technologies are an exception, and are poorly explained by these factors. By contrast, energy-efficient heating, cooling, window, lighting, and control adaptations appear to share common drivers, and are more likely to be adopted in newer, larger, more energy-intensive, owner-occupied buildings. These are the buildings that can best afford the up-front costs of innovation, which is often a design-intensive process. Absent policy interventions, the energy-efficient adaptations are unlikely to diffuse rapidly to the rest of the commercial building stock. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

• Article analyzes reported thermostat settings by 494 males and 786 females living in the US. • Average male and female reported thermostat settings differ by no more than 0.3 °C [0.5 °F]. • Controlling for demographic and environmental characteristics reduces the difference. This paper examines the extent to which males and females report different thermostat settings using data from single-occupant homes in the United States. Reported thermostat settings for heating and cooling at night, at home, and when away from home are rigorously tested for behavioral differences between the sexes. In general, single-occupant males and females report the same thermostat settings on average. The lack of differences between sexes is robust to controlling for demographic characteristics and environmental variables that differ systematically between the samples using both regression and decomposition approaches. These findings have important implications for thermostat settings and thermal comfort in shared spaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]