The IEA EBC Annex 80 held its fourth Expert Meeting on April 15^th and 16^th. Over 50 participants from 15 countries took part in three online sessions scheduled to take on the large time lag between the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Results

Since the last Expert Meeting in November substantial progress in the annex work programme has been made. Several working groups continued and finished their tasks. The weather data task group has created Typical Meteorological Years (TMY) as well as representations of heat wave events for future time periods (2020ies, 2050ies, 2090ies) which will be published shortly. Data will be available for cities covering most climate zones from the ASHRAE classification (ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 169). The definition of a framework for the evaluation of cooling technologies has been completed by a second task group. The framework has been published in an open access report (Link: https://orbi.uliege.be/handle/2268/253929). Key performance indicators (KPI) and criteria for the resilience assessment of cooling technologies have been intensively discussed within the group of annex experts and a selection of fundamental KPIs made. The results from these task groups form the basis for the worldwide assessment of cooling technologies as regards resilience.

For this task, a group of building simulation experts has gathered to carry out dynamic simulations using the weather data, framework and KPIs developed during the course of Annex 80. First results have been published or are under review:

• “Developing an understanding of resilient cooling: a socio-technical approach City and Environment Interactions” Wendy Miller et al, City and Environment Interactions, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cacint.2021.100065
• “Resilient cooling of buildings to protect against heat waves and power outages: key concepts and definition” Shady Attia et al, Energy and Buildings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enbuild.2021.110869
• “Resilient cooling strategies – a critical review and qualitative assessment” Chen Zhang et al, Energy and Buildings (currently under review in Energy and Buildings)

On October 14^th and 15^th Annex 80 members will meet again for their 5^th Expert Meeting. It will take place at Politecnico di Torino and will presumably be held as hybrid meeting due to COVID-19 restrictions.

Article by Philip Stern, Institute of Building Research & Innovation, Austria