Multi-criterial performance-based climatic zoning of Brazil supported by local experts

Performance-based climatic zoning for building energy efficiency applications has shown significant advantages when compared to methods that only rely on climate data. However, previous studies have primarily focused on small regions, which raises questions about the effectiveness of this approach for larger countries. To address this gap, this paper presents the first application of performance-based zoning to Brazil, detailing the process of revising the Brazilian climatic zoning standard using an open-source toolbox. Results of simulations for 100 variants of a detached dwelling using climatic data for 298 locations were clustered and analysed in terms of energy demand, thermal comfort, and mould growth risk (not previously used in climatic zoning studies). The paper employed a methodical approach to incorporate expert insights with the aim of enhancing and validating the outputs of the climatic zoning. To compare the proposed method with the current zoning of Brazil, and the degree-days zoning, the mean percentage of potentially misclassified areas (MPMA) was used, and its calculation was improved to handle an arbitrary number of conflicting performance indicators. The involvement of local experts was crucial in developing the proposed zoning method as they played a key role in defining the number of zones and establishing zones boundaries. The feedback from local experts confirmed the proposed method as a significant improvement over the current zoning, which is supported by the MPMA results (14%), outperforming both the current Brazilian and degree-day zones. The zoning method is applicable to countries of any size and level of complexity.

Automated summary

This paper presents the first application of performance-based zoning to Brazil, using an open-source toolbox to revise the Brazilian climatic zoning standard. The study simulates and analyzes 100 variants of a detached dwelling for 298 locations in terms of energy demand, thermal comfort, and mould growth risk. The proposed zoning method, incorporating expert insights, outperforms the current Brazilian and degree-day zones.