Future-Proof: Building Energy Modeling for the Future

Energy modeling is a critical tool in efforts to draw down the carbon footprint of our buildings. But the projections these tools make about energy use rely almost universally on historic climate data. Since climate change will significantly alter future heating and cooling seasons, today’s building designs may not perform as expected.

Well-intended efforts to improve building energy efficiency as a means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reduce energy costs may not yield the expected results unless future regional climate variability is considered in the energy modeling phase. This is a critical discussion in the face of New York City’s climate goal of reducing citywide greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050.

Join Building Energy Exchange for a discussion with consulting engineering firms RWDI and Entuitive on methods and analyses used to predict, and prepare the built environment for future climate.

RWDI’s climate, meteorological, and building performance consultants use a variety of climate projection techniques including statistical manipulation of existing climate records, and/or, dynamic downscaling of global climate models into regionally specific weather research forecasts. Entuitive’s energy modelers and building envelope specialists use future data to study the energy use and greenhouse gas emissions of various building types in New York’s current and projected future climates.

Entuitive will summarize the results of a sensitivity analysis for various building envelope energy efficiency parameters including thermal transmittance, solar heat gain coefficient, window to wall ratio, and air tightness. From this analysis, it is possible to determine the most effective ways to counteract efficiency losses resulting from climate change.

MODERATOR:
Shanta Tucker, Atelier Ten

SPEAKERS:
Paul Carter, Entuitive
Chris Van Dongen, Entuitive
Justin Downey, RWDI