Development and application of future design weather data for evaluating the building thermal-energy performance in subtropical Hong Kong

To better understand the impacts of the warming caused by global climate change on building performance, future hourly weather data that account for climate change are crucial to building simulation studies. Downscaling from general circulation models (GCMs) by the morphing method has been adopted by researchers worldwide. Using this method, we developed six sets of future hourly weather data for Hong Kong, taking the typical meteorological year (TMY) as the baseline climate. The ensemble mean from 24 general circulation models (GCMs) in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) has also been incorporated to take into account the uncertainties and biases between different models. These newly developed future weather data were then employed in the building energy simulation to evaluate the impacts of future climate change. Moreover, this study used the adaptive comfort standard (ACS) from ASHRAE Standard 55 in a mixed-mode residential building to consider the acclimatization effects of occupants in the changing climate. Results indicate that by the end of this century, the indoor discomfort percentage in the cooling seasons are expected to increase from 21.9% for TMY to 36.0% and 50.4% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 scenarios, respectively, while the annual cooling load is expected to increase up to 278.80%. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.