Mitigating the impact of climate change on UK buildings through zero energy strategies

Abstract

It is currently established that one of the paramount concerns in the built environment is the energy efficiency of new and existing UK dwellings, respective to the unfavourable impacts posed to climate change. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in the United Kingdom have reported that the UK’s highest recording temperatures have transpired in the years since 2002. With over 90% of England homes currently in use of high carbon systems for space heating and domestic hot water. Contributing to increased atmospheric carbon emissions in the dependency on fossil fuel burning; alluding to human-produced atmospheric temperature increase. To help tackle these issues in the residential sector, the capacity of zero-energy technologies has been introduced. Zero-energy implementation has potential to revolutionise the power system, with on-site power generation at the forefront of this. This paper will explore the influence of zero-energy implementation on two UK residential dwellings of disparate locations, using Integrated Environmental Solutions Virtual Environment (IESVE) by focusing on renewable on-site micro-generation systems. The ASHRAE climate zones of Edinburgh and London Gatwick has been selected to examine the performance of the building over varied regional climates of disparate locations. The selected design variables were finally implemented in combination for building simulation in IESVE and compared with a basic model dwelling. The processed simulation results showed a reduction in the buildings energy consumption of 43.4538MWh (71%) for Edinburgh and 33.9929MWh (64%) for London respective to the baseline model. The greatest savings in mitigation of UK climate change can be evaluated in relation to reduction of carbon emissions, which were 7880kgCO₂ (46%) and 5423kgCO₂ (36%) respectively.