2016 ASHRAE Annual Conference

This paper presents the results of research project RP-1561, “Procedures to Adjust Observed Climatic Data for Regional or Mesoscale Variations”. This project included a WRF modeling campaign designed to cover ten significant climate regions across North America. Model results were compared against mesoscale monitoring data in order to assess the model’s performance for a single year’s hourly weather. Subsequently, a long-term climate model evaluation was performed by running WRF over 4 regions in North America for 8 years. Overall, the model performed well against observed temperature and humidity, reasonably well against observed wind, and relatively poorly against observed solar and precipitation. Guided by this evaluation, a complete mesoscale numerical modeling procedure was developed for coastal, mountain valleys, mountain plateaus, and major city centers, to provide site-specific climate data, i.e., a freely-available software solution for developing localized climate data.

As air-conditioning demand increased significantly during the last decade, efficient energy use has become more important due to large electric power demands and limited reserves of fossil fuel. Electrical energy use fluctuates significantly during a 24-hour day due to variable demand from industrial, commercial and residential activities. In hot and cold climates, the dominant part of the load fluctuation is due to cooling and heating demands, respectively. If electric loads could be shifted from peak hours to off-peak hours, not only would building operation costs decrease, the need to run peaker plants, which typically use more fossil fuels than non-peaker plants, would also decrease. Thus, shifting electricity consumption from peak to off-peak hours promotes economic and environmental savings. This paper utilizes simulation and experimental work to examine a total of twelve precooling strategies in three residential buildings in the Phoenix, Arizona climate. The selected buildings are considered to represent majority of residential buildings in the area. Results of this project show that precooling can save up to 46% of peak energy demand in a home constructed with concrete or cementitious block and up to 35% in wood frame homes. Homeowners can save up to US $244/year in block construction and up to US $119/year in wood frame homes.