Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use

Wang, Chenghao; Song, Jiyun; Shi, Dachuan; Reyna, Janet L.; Horsey, Henry; Feron, Sarah; Zhou, Yuyu; Ouyang, Zutao; Li, Ying; Jackson, Robert B.

doi:10.1038/s41467-023-41458-5

Title: Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use

Journal Article · 17 October 2023 · Nature Communications

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-023-41458-5 · OSTI ID:2203524

^[1];

^[2]; Shi, Dachuan ^[3];

^[4];

^[4]; Feron, Sarah ^[5];

^[3];

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Stanford Univ., CA (United States); Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)
Univ. of Hong Kong, Pokfulam (Hong Kong); Wuhan Univ. (China)
Univ. of Hong Kong, Pokfulam (Hong Kong)
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
Universidade de Santiago de Chile (Chile); Univ. of Groningen (Netherlands)
Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
China Three Gorges University (China); Engineering Research Center of Eco-environment in Three Gorges Reservoir Region (China)

Climate, technologies, and socio-economic changes will influence future building energy use in cities. However, current low-resolution regional and state-level analyses are insufficient to reliably assist city-level decision-making. Here we estimate mid-century hourly building energy consumption in 277 U.S. urban areas using a bottom-up approach. The projected future climate change results in heterogeneous changes in energy use intensity (EUI) among urban areas, particularly under higher warming scenarios, with on average 10.1–37.7% increases in the frequency of peak building electricity EUI but over 110% increases in some cities. For each 1 °C of warming, the mean city-scale space-conditioning EUI experiences an average increase/decrease of ~14%/ ~ 10% for space cooling/heating. Heterogeneous city-scale building source energy use changes are primarily driven by population and power sector changes, on average ranging from –9% to 40% with consistent south–north gradients under different scenarios. Across the scenarios considered here, the changes in city-scale building source energy use, when averaged over all urban areas, are as follows: –2.5% to –2.0% due to climate change, 7.3% to 52.2% due to population growth, and –17.1% to –8.9% due to power sector decarbonization. Our findings underscore the necessity of considering intercity heterogeneity when developing sustainable and resilient urban energy systems.

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Research Organization:: National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Energy Efficiency Office. Building Technologies Office

Grant/Contract Number:: AC36-08GO28308

OSTI ID:: 2203524

Report Number(s):: NREL/JA-5500-84436; MainId:85209; UUID:65c6ccfc-d779-4746-8f93-1f157dd20005; MainAdminID:70918

Journal Information:: Nature Communications, Journal Name: Nature Communications Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 14; ISSN 2041-1723

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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Title: Impacts of climate change, population growth, and power sector decarbonization on urban building energy use

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