IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science, Volume 1085, SBE22Delft - Innovations for the Urban Energy Transition: Preparing for the European Renovation Wave , Zuid-Holland, Netherlands, 11 - 13 October 2022, pp.1-8
The high energy consumption and associated carbon emissions due to the heating and
cooling of buildings create a heavy environmental burden. One of the cost-efficient solutions to
reduce the heating and cooling demands is to incorporate phase change materials (PCMs) in the
building components, increasing the thermal mass of the building and providing latent heat
thermal storage. However, the rising temperatures over the years will alter the effectiveness of
PCM in building envelopes. In this study, four cities in Turkey with different climatic
characteristics were selected. For each city, future weather files representing the climatic
conditions of 2050 and 2080 were generated from the current weather data using
CCWorldWeatherGen. A typical office building that utilizes gypsum wallboards was modeled
with EnergyPlus as a reference case. Alternative energy models were generated by modifying
the wallboard compositions (PCM melting temperature: 19-27°C). The building’s annual heating
and cooling energy demands were calculated for each city, year, and wallboard alternative.
Generated data were analyzed to evaluate the future efficiency of the wallboards with the
changing climate over the years in order to maximize the long-term performance gains from
PCM incorporating wallboards. The results showed that the selection of the optimum PCM
melting temperature of a location should not only depend on thermo-physical and layer
properties of the PCM wallboard as the optimum melting temperature of the PCM is subject to
change with rising temperatures. The impact of climate change should be considered to fully
evaluate the long-term performance of the PCM wallboard in terms of energy use and CO2
emissions.