The Impact of Building Retrofitting on Thermal Resilience against Power Failure: A Case of Air-conditioned House

Published in 5th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment, COBEE 2022Mirzabeigi, S., Homaei, S., Razkenari, M., & Hamdy, M. (2023). The Impact of Building Retrofitting on Thermal Resilience against Power Failure: A Case of Air-conditioned House. In: Wang, L.L., et al. Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment. COBEE 2022. Environmental Science and Engineering. Springer, Singapore. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-9822-5_279 
Buildings are designed, constructed, and operated with a high dependence on mechanical systems to maintain their expected thermal performance. However, disturbances such as power failure can strongly affect their thermal performance, specifically during heat waves. Building retrofit can be served as an innovative path not only for boosting energy efficiency, but also for improving thermal resilience of buildings and reducing heat-exposure risk of occupants. It is important to understand how retrofitting solutions can impact thermal resilience. However, the application of resilience quantification frameworks, in this context, is limited. Consequently, this study evaluates envelope retrofitting solutions by extending the application of an introduced novel thermal resilience benchmarking framework to a cooling dominated climate. The methodology is tested for various envelope retrofitting solutions of a single-family residential building against a four-day power failure period in Houston, Texas, USA. The phase, the hazard, and the exposure time penalties are considered to introduce a resilience labeling against the disturbance event. The results show a range of 10-62% thermal resilience improvement for various retrofitting packages compared to the existing condition of the case study in the hot condition. The findings indicate the suitability of test framework for assessing thermal resilience. Additionally, they show the importance of scalable envelope retrofitting with regards to maintaining comfort, improving thermal resilient behavior of buildings, and enhancing energy performance in the event of system or power failure.
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