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Reliable identification of realistic biomass at regional level is particularly important in creating a real energy strategy. It must stand for the region in particular in the long-term aspect of its sustainable development. The aim of the paper is to identify and quantify environmental impacts, especially microclimatic impacts, on the possibility of establishing and growing economically and energy-efficient plantations of fast-growing energy plants in Slovakia regions. The NUTS III methodology was used to locate the climatic conditions of the Slovakia regions. Climatic factors in Slovakia regions were expressed as average monthly air temperatures and average monthly precipitation for the vegetation period from April to October. The climatic parameters of the model plantation in the Nitra region were defined on the basis of measurements of the Physicus Meteostation, located in the field conditions of Kolíòany village. Regions in the southern and south-eastern regions of Slovakia (Bratislava, Trnava, Nitra, Košice) are the most climatic friendly for the growing Mustanthus and Populus. The Northern regions (Žilina and Prešov) are less suitable for climatic reasons - the shorter length of vegetation period required for the economically efficient production of above-ground biomass. In the Nitra region, productivity in real climatic conditions is 33.66 t.ha-1 (Miscanthus) and 135.14 t.ha-1 (Populus). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the climate change impact on cooling energy consumption of office buildings in four major architectural climate zones in China. The results show that there are apparent differences in the responses of monthly or yearly cooling loads to climatic change in different climates. Dominant factors affecting monthly cooling loads change from dry bulb temperature (DBT) to wet bulb temperature (WBT) with the climate zones changing from severe cold to hot. The yearly cooling load was mainly afftectd by DBT in severe cold climate, whereas the WBT had the dominant effect in the other climates. With the continuous warming climate, the yearly cooling load did not rise significantly for any climate zone except for severe cold climate zone where cooling load had a significant increase ( p  < 0.01). More importantly, the cooling load showed a weak decrease in Guangzhou. These results suggest that different measurements for buildings cooling energy conservation should be made in different climate zones. The humidity effect should be fully considered to improve buildings energy efficiency, especially in the hot climate zones. The continuous increase of temperature in the future does not necessarily increase cooling loads of buildings in the cold, hot summer & cold winter and hot summer & warm winter climate zones, and change trendency of humidity in the future need to be considered to predict cooling energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]