Integrated thermal strategies for UK non-domestic building energy demand

Aim and Approach: To tackle climate change and reach net zero, this paper investigates how building consumes energy in response to the opportunity of integrated thermal strategies, under the warming climate. The aim is to explore the extent to which building energy demand can be met when considering adaptive thermal comfort approach and geothermal energy provision. The objectives include: 1) comparing building energy demand after extending temperature set-points to integrate adaptive thermal comfort; 2) examining future building energy demand, such as how the heating and cooling demands change under the warming climate; 3) evaluating the feasibility to achieve renewable energy supply using a repurposed deep borehole. The methodology of this work includes simulating a case study building and its adjacent deep borehole based on monitoring data. The impact of adaptive thermal comfort in the form of extended thermostat set-points is then evaluated using the model. After the building demand scenarios are examined, renewable energy supply from a deep borehole adjacent to the USB is investigated to test to what extent can the geothermal wellbore decarbonise the building.

Scientific Innovation and Relevance: Buildings are responsible for a significant proportion of worldwide energy consumption and carbon emissions. The lion’s share of buildings’ energy consumption is used for heating and cooling to maintain occupants’ thermal comfort. Office buildings, in particular, tend to have relatively narrow temperature set-points for maintaining thermal comfort, whereas occupants can adapt to a much wider range of temperatures when given control over their own environmental conditions.

This paper examines a case study building - the Urban Sciences Building (USB), which is located in the city of Newcastle, UK. This building has digital sensors installed throughout to constantly monitor environmental conditions and energy use. A validated dynamic simulation model is employed to simulate USB’s energy performance at present day and under future climate scenarios. The innovative multi-sensor system throughout the USB makes it possible for accurate prediction of the building’s energy demand using extensive datasets collected from the building.

Geothermal energy provides a reliable source of heat among various renewables, having recently gained traction also because of its wide availability. Meanwhile, there is a lack of work evaluating how the impact from an adaptive approach would change under the warming climate, especially concerning cooling demand in the UK. In addition, heat decarbonisation has rarely been considered alongside an adaptive comfort approach. Thus, this work seeks to bring these together, examining the potential of integrated thermal strategies to decarbonise non-domestic buildings, both at present and in a warmer future.

Results and Conclusions: The results show that when both thermal strategies were applied, the building’s energy reliance on non-renewables can be reduced by over a quarter. This work demonstrated a low-cost viable way of cutting down building’s energy demand and carbon emissions. Under the future warming climate scenarios, the modelling prediction shows a more significant decrease in heating and, to a lesser extent, increase in cooling demand at USB. However, with an adaptive thermal comfort approach, the prediction reveals a significant decrease in cooling demand during the summer season. Therefore, this work shows that the impact of adaptive thermal comfort is significant in helping buildings to reduce energy demand. This indicates that occupants’ reliance on mechanical cooling need not be as much as one might assume as the weather gets warmer over the coming decades in a temperate climate like UK. Further utilisation of renewable energy supply will be needed for an office building like USB to reach net zero, in addition to the integrated thermal strategies.