Building Thermal and Energy Performance of Subtropical Terraced Houses under Future Climate Uncertainty

Abstract

Due to global temperature increases, terraced house (TH) residents face a threat to their health due to poor indoor thermal environments. As buildings are constructed by low-income residents without professional guidance, this study aims to investigate the indoor thermal comfort and energy resilience of THs under the future climate and determine the optimal passive design strategies for construction and retrofitting. By exploring the effects of building envelope structures, adjusting the window-to-wall ratio (WWR) and designing shading devices, EnergyPlus version 22.0 was used to optimize the thermal environment and cooling load of THs throughout their life cycle under future climate uncertainties. Unimproved THs will experience overheating for nearly 90% of the hours in a year and the cooling load will exceed 60,000 kWh by 2100 under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP) 8.5 scenario. In contrast, optimization and improvements resulted in a 17.3% reduction in indoor cooling load by increasing shading devices and the WWR, and using building envelope structures with moderate thermal insulation. This study can guide TH design and renovation, significantly reducing indoor cooling load and enabling residents to better use active cooling to combat future overheating environments.