The impacts of a changing climate are wide-ranging in both impact and scope. This presentation focuses on the effect climate variability would have on Salt Lake County’s energy demand and air quality impacts. Salt Lake County, UT is a Zone 5, Subtype B climate encompassing the state capital, Salt Lake City, and the University of Utah (UU). Energy demand scenarios derived using climate predictions for 2040-50 are presented at three scales: individual building, central business district, and county level. The Wasatch Front Regional Council’s regional transportation and land use projections for 2040 were used as the backbone of our urbanization growth predictions.

Human thermal sensation and comfort are important topics in the design and operation of occupied spaces. Steady state thermal sensation and comfort has been widely studied and has robust predictive models available for designers but responses to transient conditions have received much less attention. The current study reports on the transient thermal comfort and sensation reported by subjects while playing a video game. Chamber temperatures ranged from 25°C starting temperature to 40°C and then back to 25°C in a symmetrical profile design. The rise and fall occurred over a 20 minute time frame.

Micro cogeneration and micro trigeneration technologies have the potential to reduce domestic energy consumption and create more resilient buildings. In this work, variations in residential heat to power ratio due to climate change are assessed in the Northeastern climate of the United States. Simulations of high R-value walls are compared to older wall constructions in current and future climate conditions. Impacts on current micro cogeneration design are discussed. The study explores the interrelationship between climate, enclosure and micro cogeneration heat to power ratio with the goal of developing and designing enclosure and micro cogeneration systems that are more adaptive to climate changes.