1. Effects of urban vegetation on microclimate and building energy demand in winter: An evaluation using coupled simulations.
- Author
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Ge, Juejun, Wang, Yupeng, Zhou, Dian, Gu, Zhaolin, and Meng, Xiangzhao
- Subjects
ENERGY consumption ,LEAF area index ,COLD regions ,CITIES & towns ,URBAN plants ,HEATING load ,URBAN trees - Abstract
• Simulated effects of vegetation on microclimate of different urban blocks in winter. • Simulated effects of vegetation on building heating energy in different urban blocks. • Vegetation brought a building heating load increase of 7.16 % in a sunny day at most. • Vegetation brought a building heating load decrease of 2.80 % in a cloudy day at most. • Offered evergreen urban vegetation strategies for high-density cities in cold region. As an important landscape, the evergreen vegetation is prevailing, even in cold region cities. However, the impacts of promoting vegetation on microclimate and building heating load (BHL) are still inexplicit. This study validated the feasibility of a new-developed coupled model that linked ENVI-met and EnergyPlus, for predicting the microclimate and BHL in winter. The impacts of vegetation configuration changes on the performances of three typical urban blocks in Xi'an, a high-density city in the cold region of China, were then evaluated. When the leaf area index of green lands increased from 0.79 to 4.77 m
2 /m2 , a decrease of 3.27 °C on mean radiant temperature, a decrease of 0.48 m/s on wind speed, and an increase of 0.47 °C on air temperature at the block scale could be observed. To the three blocks, the BHL of thermal zones in the height range of tree canopy increased by 7.16 %, 1.52 % and 3.57 % during a sunny day, and decreased by 2.80 %, 0.55 %, and 0.06 % during a cloudy day maximally. Overall, the evergreen vegetation produced negative impacts on the building energy efficiency of cold region cities. For urban planners, it's advisable to concentrate evergreen plants in high-rise blocks to mitigate such disadvantages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]- Published
- 2024
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