Energy saving effect and mechanism of cooling setting temperature increased by 1 °C for residential buildings in different cities

• Published in: Energy and buildings Vol. 202; p. 109335
• Main Authors: Guo, Shurui, Yang, Hanyu, Li, Yanru, Zhang, Yin, Long, Enshen
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lausanne Elsevier B.V 01-11-2019; Elsevier BV
• Subjects: Air conditioners; Air conditioning; Building energy saving; Characteristic temperature method; Cities; Cooling; Cooling energy consumption simulation; Cooling loads; Energy; Energy conservation; Energy consumption; Energy usage; Housing; Residential areas; Residential buildings; Setting temperature increase; Temperature; Characteristic temperature method; Building energy saving; Setting temperature increase; Cooling energy consumption simulation
• ISSN: 0378-7788; 1872-6178
• DOI: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2019.109335

•The same building geometries and the same thermal properties of building envelope for different seven climatic cities were assumed.•Energy conservation effect including saving amount and saving ratio were discussed annually and monthly among seven cities.•The inner mechanism of the difference was revealed from the hourly and daily perspectives through two extremely contrast climatic cities.•Guidance and reference were provided for both standard determination and behavioral energy saving for air conditioning systems.
Indoor setting temperature is a key controllable parameter by users, highly impacting the total cooling energy usage. In this paper, the hourly cooling load of residential buildings is simulated for seven cities respectively when the cooling setting temperature (CST) increases by 1 °C, and the dissimilarity and internal mechanism of the energy saving effect are discussed and revealed from the hourly and daily perspectives through two extremely contrast climatic cities. The results show that although the higher yearly energy saving amount (ESA) can appear in a hotter city, energy saving effect is all significant in different cities. The ESA in hotter months of hotter cities may not be higher than that in the corresponding months of cooler cities, and the hotter cities have more obvious platform features while the cooler cities have single peak features, and the peak value is much higher than the plateau value. The yearly cooling saving ratio (CSR) is higher in cooler cities because CSR depends on both the hourly CSR and its weightiness, and the proportion of the higher ratio hours in cool cities is larger. This study can provide references for both standard determination and behavioral energy saving for air conditioning systems.