Impact of future climate change on energy consumption in residential buildings: A case study for representative cities in Japan

This study examines the impact of future climate change on energy consumption in residential buildings in Japan, taking into account both the current and future typical meteorological year (TMY) database. TMY data is widely used in the building sector for energy performance assessments, system sizing, and optimization. To investigate the impact of current and future TMY databases on energy consumption of buildings, the study predicts the cooling and heating loads of residential buildings in four cities of Japan under the current (2020 ver.) and future (2086 ver.) TMY databases. Results show that the use of future TMY database leads to significant changes in air-conditioning heat loads of residential buildings in Japan. It finds that the annual cooling load in residential buildings of four cites of Japan increases by approximately 12% for Tokyo, approximately 9% for Toyohashi, approximately 8% for Osaka, and approximately 7% for Nagoya, respectively, however the annual heating load decreases by approximately 8% for Tokyo, approximately 9% for Toyohashi, approximately 6% for Osaka, and approximately 5% for Nagoya, respectively, compared to the current TMY database. This finding suggests that climate change will have a significant impact on future building energy consumption, and proposes energy-efficient building design as a solution to mitigate the impact of climate change on building energy consumption.