THERMAL SCIENCE

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Andrea Vallati

,

Luca Mauri

,

Chiara Colucci

HOW THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT AFFECTS THE MICROCLIMATE AND THE BUILDING ENERGY DEMAND FOR THE CITY OF ROME

ABSTRACT
Urban heat island has significant impacts on buildings' energy consumption. The phenomenon is associated with increased urban air temperatures compared to the air temperature of the surrounding rural or suburban areas. The ambient air temperature growth due to climate changes and the urban heat island phenomenon are dramatically increasing the cooling demand in buildings. This is worsened by irradiation conditions, construction technologies, and subjective comfort expectations. This paper examines the impact of the urban environment on the energy demand of buildings, considering the case of two districts of the city of Rome, Italy: one is representative of a central zone, the other of a rural zone. Weather data were then used to calculate the thermal demand of a typical Italian building, ideally located in the monitored areas of the city. Standalone building with modified weather file was modeled in TRNSYS. Results show that urban heat island intensity causes an increase in cooling demand up to +33% for the urban area (+20% for the rural area) compared to the demand calculated using weather data from airportual areas. On the other hand, urban heat island intensity has a positive effect on heating demand which turns out to decrease up to -32% for the urban area (-14% for the rural area).
KEYWORDS
urban heat island, street canyon, thermal energy demand, TRNSYS
PAPER SUBMITTED: 2018-12-05
PAPER REVISED: 2019-01-15
PAPER ACCEPTED: 2019-01-24
PUBLISHED ONLINE: 2019-09-22
DOI REFERENCE: https://doi.org/10.2298/TSCI19S4035V
CITATION EXPORT: view in browser or download as text file
THERMAL SCIENCE YEAR 2019, VOLUME 23, ISSUE Supplement 4, PAGES [S1035 - S1042]
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How the urban environment affects the microclimate and the building energy demand for the City of Rome

© 2024 Society of Thermal Engineers of Serbia. Published by the Vinča Institute of Nuclear Sciences, National Institute of the Republic of Serbia, Belgrade, Serbia. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International licence