Introducing Degree Days to Building Thermal Climatic Zoning in China

  • LIU Yan ,
  • WEN Zeqiu ,
  • LYU Kailin ,
  • YANG Liu ,
  • LIU Jiaping ,
  • DONG Hong ,
  • GAO Qinglong
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  • 1. State Key Laboratory of Green Building in Western China, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China
    2. School of Architecture, Xi’an University of Architecture and Technology, Xi’an 710055, China
    3. China Academy of Building Research, Beijing 100013, China
    4. China Southwest Architectural Design and Research Institute corp. Ltd., Chengdu 610041, China

Online published: 2023-11-22

Supported by

We would like to acknowledge financial supports for this work provided by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51838011, 52078407).

Abstract

Building thermal climatic zoning is a key issue in building energy efficiency. Heating degree days (HDD) and cooling degree days (CDD) are often employed as indexes to represent the heating and cooling energy demand in climatic zoning. However, only using degree days may oversimplify the climatic zoning in regions with complex climatic conditions. In the present study, the application of degree days to current building thermal climatic zoning in China was assessed based on performance simulations. To investigate the key indexes for thermal climatic zoning, the climate characteristics of typical cities were analyzed and the relationships between the climate indexes and heating/cooling demand were obtained. The results reveal that the annual cumulative heating load had a linear correlation with HDD18 only in regions with small differences in altitude. Therefore, HDD is unsuitable for representing the heating demand in regions with large differences in altitude. A comprehensive index (winter climatic severity index) should be employed instead of HDD, or complementary indexes (daily global solar radiation or altitude) could be used to further divide climate zones. In the current official climatic zoning, the base temperature of 26°C for CDD is excessively high. The appropriate base temperature range is 18°C to 22°C. This study provides a reference for selecting indexes to improve thermal climatic zoning in regions with similar climates.

Cite this article

LIU Yan , WEN Zeqiu , LYU Kailin , YANG Liu , LIU Jiaping , DONG Hong , GAO Qinglong . Introducing Degree Days to Building Thermal Climatic Zoning in China[J]. Journal of Thermal Science, 2023 , 32(3) : 1155 -1170 . DOI: 10.1007/s11630-023-1449-z

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