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The latest climate change projections for Sweden suggest mean annual temperature increase of up to 5.5 °C by 2100, compared to 1961-1990 levels. In this study we investigate the potential impacts of climate change on the energy demand for space conditioning, overheating risk and indoor thermal comfort of a modern multi-storey residential building in Sweden. We explore climate change adaptation strategies to improve the building’s performance under the climate change conditions, including increased ventilation, solar shading, improved windows and mechanical cooling. The building is analysed under future climate projections for the 2050-2059 time frame, with representative concentration pathway (RCP) 2.6, 4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The building’s performances under these future climates are compared to those under the historical climate of 1961-1990 and recent climate of 1981-2010. The results suggest that climate change will significantly influence energy performance and indoor comfort conditions of buildings in the Swedish context. Overheating hours and Predicted Percentage of Dissatisfied (PPD) increased significantly under the future climate scenarios. Furthermore space heating demand is reduced and cooling demand is increased for the studied building. However, effective adaptation strategies significantly improved the buildings’ energy and indoor climate performances under both current and future climate conditions.

In Europe, buildings are responsible for 40% of the energy consumption and 36% of the CO2 emissions. Space heating largely contributes to these energy and climate impacts. Passive solar heating systems, as sunspaces, can contribute to increase solar heat gains, reducing space heating energy demand and the related use of fossil fuels. Careful design and local climatic considerations are essential to optimize the performance of sunspaces. In this study experimental field monitoring, dynamic modelling and steady-state methods are applied to analyse the thermal behaviour of an attached sunspace in an Italian existing building, as well as its potential contribution to the building’s energy balance. Design modifications for improved thermal performance of the sunspace are investigated. The results show overall agreement between the dynamic modellings and experimental monitoring of the sunspace and indicate that the sunspace’s indoor air temperature and hence solar energy gains are significantly increased with the design modifications, in contrast to the existing configuration. Maximum temperatures between 44 and 48 °C were observed for the existing and a modified alternative of the analysed sunspace. The dynamic simulation model and design modifications presented in this study can serve as basis for assessment and optimal configurations of sunspaces in their design stage.

In this study the implications of different energy efficiency requirements and heating solutions for versions of a single-family house in southern Sweden is explored. Final energy use, primary energy use, climate impacts and lifecycle cost of heat supply are analyzed for the building versions designed to meet the current Swedish BBR 2015 building code and heated with district heating or exhaust air heat pump. A case where the building is designed to the Swedish passive house criteria and heated with exhaust air heat pump is also analyzed. The district heating is assumed to be supplied from combined heat and power plants using bio-based fuels. For the heat pump solutions, cases are analyzed where the electricity supply is from coal-fired condensing power plant or fossil gas combined cycle power plant as baseline scenario, and from a combination of improved fossil power plants and non-fossil power plants as long-term scenario. The analysis considers the entire energy chain from natural resources to the final energy services. The results show that the BBR heat pump heated building use the most primary energy compared to the other two alternatives. Lifecycle cost is reduced by about 7-12% when district heating is used instead of heat pump for a BBR code-compliant building. This study shows the importance of lifecycle and system-wide perspectives in analyzing the resource efficiency and climate impacts as well as economic viabilities of heating solutions for houses.