Apostolopoulou, Athanasia
(2025)
Assessing the future climate resilience of UK Building Regulations and EnerPHit Standard: a case study for the residential stock in Nottingham.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
In the 21st century, climate change is considered as one of the main concerns that humanity faces, due to the rapid climate variable fluctuations, and the increase of the extreme weather events. The climate change and the built environment have an interdependent relationship. Globally, 40% of the total annual energy use comes from the residential sector, resulting in higher emissions of carbon dioxide, which is the main driver of global warming and climate change.
With the rapid urbanisation, and the constantly increasing requirements for human thermal comfort in urban areas, there is an inevitable need for retrofit interventions in the existing residential stock. Since 1990, the greenhouse gases were decreased only
by 20%, from which only 30-40% comes from the application of energy efficient measures. Therefore, improving the energy efficiency of the existing residential building stock remains a significant challenge. Nonetheless, the EU’s current annual refurbishment rate of 1% falls under the essential 3% needed for 30% energy use reduction by 2050, underlining the significance of renovation efforts acceleration.
To tackle the situation for establishing energy efficient building interventions for the adaptation to climate change, Urban Building Energy Modelling under the future climate scenarios is an effective solution. Targetting the most energy inefficient urban areas in the future, and applying appropriate energy efficient measures according to each case, is a key factor for adapting the residential stock to climate change. Nevertheless, most of the past Urban Building Energy Modelling research studies focus on the commercial buildings both due to their higher energy needs and due to the data availability. Thus, the most impactful building and urban parameters in residential energy use need to be investigated.
The aim of this research was to identify the key variables influencing building energy use and apply this knowledge to the residential stock in Nottingham, UK, in order to determine efficient building interventions, according to future climate scenarios. Hence, two key steps were undertaken: investigating the data requirements for urban building energy modelling (UBEM), and then using this to evaluate the future energy demand.
To accomplish this an UBEM bottom-up physics-based approach was implemented, for the estimation of the percentage difference in the urban energy demand. The study selected two residential neighbourhoods, consisting of 580 buildings in total. After defining the data requirements and the most impactful parameters, the developed energy model accounted for the evaluation of the climate change and the impact of the energy efficient measures on the energy demand, both on heating and cooling.
The results showed that there is still room for UBEM dataset improvements, and that choosing the right renovation strategies for the current residential building stock is essential for appropriate adaptation to climate change. The findings suggest that the most influential building parameter is the airtightness, with average energy demand percentage change equal to 0.52%, for 1% change. Moreover, the addition of urban surroundings, namely trees and surrounding buildings, is critical, since some buildings experienced more than 10% energy demand difference.
Finally, regarding the climate change impact, in terms of the heating demand, the EnerPHit standard is more resilient than the UK Building Regulations. However, as regards the cooling demand, the analysis showed that under the EnerPHit standard there is a progressive increase with higher pace than the UK Building regulations. Thus, the key finding is that the policymakers should focus on establishing renovation strategies that will reduce the heating loads presently, but will also prevent the overheating effect in the advent of the rising temperatures due to global warming.
| Item Type: |
Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
(PhD)
|
| Supervisors: |
Wilson, Robin
Boyd, Doreen
Jiménez-Bescos, Carlos
Calderón, Carlos
Cavazzi, Stefano |
| Keywords: |
UBEM, enerPHit, UK BRegs, Ordnance Survey, EPC, energy modelling |
| Subjects: |
T Technology > TH Building construction |
| Faculties/Schools: |
UK Campuses > Faculty of Engineering > Department of Civil Engineering |
| Item ID: |
82861 |
| Depositing User: |
Apostolopoulou, Athanasia
|
| Date Deposited: |
09 Dec 2025 04:40 |
| Last Modified: |
09 Dec 2025 04:40 |
| URI: |
https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/82861 |
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