Where satellite-enhanced climate design data leaves a massive impact
Climate design data (a term refering to all climate data used during a building design process explained in our earlier article) is used in various stages of building design, from building simulation, through HVAC sizing, to building envelope design. Similar climate data can be used also for HVAC performance assessment in later stages of the building life cycle. The accuracy of data in all these processes is crucial for avoiding the short and long term issues in the areas we will be looking at now.
Carbon footprint
The carbon footprint of a building is determined by the greenhouse gasses it produces during its lifetime both by energy consumption and the materials used. Here, we are focusing on building energy consumption, which predominantly depends on the size of the building, thermal and daylighting parameters of its envelope, the HVAC system put in place, and the occupant behavior. Since buildings consume more energy than any other sector (e.g. 40% of all energy in the EU is consumed by buildings), the total carbon footprint we leave on our planet is greatly influenced by the buildings we build and operate (e.g. 36% of all CO2 emissions in the EU is produced by buildings).
The performance of the HVAC system, and the building envelope greatly influence a building’s total energy consumption and carbon emissions. Today's standardized climatic design conditions for designing HVAC systems and building envelopes consist of the most basic climate statistics, created from old weather station records generalized for regions of thousands of km2 in size. Such limited data is not capable of providing insight into ongoing climatic changes, hindering performance optimization of these systems.
Tenant experience - indoor comfort, health and productivity
A building is first and foremost designed for its users. If it is not optimized for tenant experience, the value of the building falls drastically. On top of placement and accessibility, a great factor in maximizing the value of a building is its indoor comfort, which is achieved by the proper control of humidity, air quality, temperature, and natural lighting. These conditions, when properly managed, mitigate health risks and improve the productivity of the people spending long hours inside the building. Improper air conditioning and ventilation can lead to the spreading of disease, but also to lowering of oxygen levels which impacts alertness and productivity. Simulating a building’s natural lighting and energy performance using weather files created from outdated measurements of weather stations located kilometers away from a building site drastically hinders the optimization of overall tenant experience.
Return on investmentment and value of real estate
Today, providing superior tenant experience and energy efficiency is increasingly important in the real estate market. Going about (re)designing building systems using the most basic climate statistics, and simulating building performance using limited-accuracy weather files, increases the investment costs and minimizes ROI. Investing in an oversized HVAC system and a suboptimally performing building envelope also increases operating costs, amount of CO2 emissions, and the risk of unsatisfactory indoor comfort, thereby decreasing the value of the building from the get-go. Not being able to guarantee low operating costs, long-term high performance, and general attractiveness for the users and tenants will potentially lead to building’s commercial failure.
So, how does satellite-enhanced design data help me?
To design a sustainable building for the 21st century means that high-end technology needs to be utilized from the beginning. This includes advanced space technology, in the form of climate measurements of satellites orbiting the Earth, and Machine Learning algorithms processing these measurements into actionable site-specific insight. Such datasets enable more accurate building energy and comfort modelling to assure both investors and the future users of the building are signing up for a profitable investment. To learn more about the impact of satellite-enhanced climate design data on the building design results, see our use cases page and if you are interested in finding out how accurate MeteoInsight climate data is, check out our validation page.
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