Impacts of microclimate on the simulated energy performance of Australian offices buildings

This study investigates the difference between modelled energy performance in a variety of microclimates and as modelled without consideration of microclimate. The initial work for this paper was to collect temperature and humidity data over a week of warm weather in a number of microclimates created by the plants, soil types and soil surface characteristics at the Australian National Botanical Gardens (ANBG), Canberra, Australia. These microclimates range from rainforest gully to semi arid. The first part of this paper will present this data. Building simulations were performed using weather data files modified using the collected data. Two small office buildings are simulated. The second part of the paper shows that there are substantial differences in the predicted energy performance of office buildings depending whether microclimate is considered and in which microclimate they are located.