Low energy buildings in Taiwan mountain areas: A weather data analysis

The energy consumption of buildings is influenced by the climates tremendously. Taiwan is an island covered with high mountains. Crossed by the tropic of cancer, the basic climates zones include tropical and subtropical climates. In this research, the degree day and degree hour methods were used to analyze 37 weather stations data in mid and high elevation regions of Taiwan collected over 10 years. The WRF model were used to predict summer cooling hours using 26, 28, 30 degrees C as the base temperatures. The research showed that Taiwan has complicated climate zones due to the variations of the elevation. The low air-conditioning load areas in the mid and high elevation regions will be the most suitable areas to design low energy consumption buildings in Taiwan.