Climate change and the energy performance of buildings in the future – a case study for prefabricated buildings in the UK

Climate change - partly driven by the increasing level of anthropogenic greenhouse gases - is affecting the energy consumption of buildings. This study assesses the impact of climate change on the energy performance of buildings. It focuses on the energy consumption associated with heating in a case study of prefabricated building in the UK. The energy consumption associated with space heating is evaluated using the degree-days theory, and the actual energy consumption of the buildings is used to verify the outcome of the analytical degree-days approach for the estimated energy consumption. The verified degree-days model is then used to predict future energy demand of the case study building in 2030, 2050, and 2080 using two climate change scenarios with medium (A1B) and high (A1F1) emissions. In addition, the energy-related CO2 emissions associated with the space heating are evaluated using carbon intensity projections. This study identified the true heating base temperature for the case study building and this allows for the estimation of the future energy consumption of the building with an average 6% margin of error. For the prefabricated case study building, the energy consumption associated with heating in 2030 and 2080 is expected to be up to 12% and 34% lower than in 2017 respectively. Moreover, the outcomes of this study showed that the standard base temperature of 15.5 ˚C for the degree-days method is significantly higher than the actual heating base temperature of the prefabricated building by 2.5 ˚C