Heating and Cooling Energy Performance of Urban Office Buildings Including Microclimate Effects in the Mediterranean Climate of Algiers

This paper reports on an investigation of the impacts of the urban microclimate and reduced solar access potentials in modifying the urban energy balance and, hence, the energy demand of office buildings. The building construction itself is considered as well, for it affects the outdoor-indoor thermal exchanges through the built envelope as shared interface. Combined urban and building numerical modelling (TEB, TRNSYS) is used to perform extensive parametric studies for the Mediterranean warm-humid location of Algiers. The simulation plans as well as the results rely on the statistical design of experiments (DOE). The investigated variables: thermal insulation, thermal inertia, window ratio, and aspect ratio, revealed to be decisive; yet differently for outdoors and indoors and for heating and cooling. The cooling energy demand is found to be higher (34.8%) and the heating energy demand lower (17.2%) under urban microclimate conditions as direct consequence of a prevailing in-canyon warming.