The Combined Impacts of Climate Change and Urban Expansion on Energy Consumption for Different Types of Buildings

The impacts of climate change and urban expansion (expressed as increase of building area) on heating/cooling energy consumption of commercial, office and residential buildings in a large city in Northern China, were determined. The results showed that climate change and urban expansion have different impacts on the building energy consumption at the city scale. In the case of without considering urban expansion impact on energy consumption (i.e., unit area energy consumption), heating energy consumption was dominantly affected by dry bulb temperate. In contrast of heating consumption, wet bulb temperature had the dominant effect on cooling energy consumption for commercial and office buildings. If the urban expansion impact on the total energy consumption at the city scale was considered the climate change impact became weaker. For the total heating energy consumption (unit area energy consumption multiplied by building area), climate change is the dominant impacting factor for total heating energy consumption of commercial or office buildings, whereas urban expansion has the dominant impact on the cooling energy consumption, with no (commercial building) or small (office building) impacts by climate change. The results indicates, although the total energy consumption at the city scale is less affected by climate change, especially for the cities with rapid expansion, efficient measures for energy saving should be made according to the impact of climate parameters due to the apparent impacts of climate change on unit area energy consumption. In particular, the rapid warming of climate in winter should be fully considered to promoting energy efficiency for heating of buildings.