Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 7068: Impact of Climate Change on the Energy Needs of Houses in Chile (Sustainability)

Global warming will affect the heating and cooling energy demands of houses. Thus, it is necessary to measure this impact in different areas of a country to influence future public policies, guidelines, and regulations. This paper proposes to forecast the energy demand for five house archetypes located in eight cities in Chile. These archetypes are thermally insulated according to current regulatory standards given by the country. They were simulated using the simplified hourly model from the international standards ISO 13790, considering climatic conditions between 1990 and 2010 and projected climatic conditions between 2045 and 2054. Three climatology models: a) Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate (MIROC-ESM), b) Institut Pierre Simon Laplace Climate System Model 5 (IPSL-CM5A), and c) Community Climate System Model (CCSM4) in the context of two representative concentration pathways: 4.5 and 8.5 W/m2 are used to forecast future climate. The most significant results show that energy demand for heating could decrease by 35% on average while cooling energy demand could significantly increase for cities such as Antofagasta and Santiago.