In a context of climate change, the cooling period of buildings is increasing every year in Mediterranean countries. This will become a relevant issue when existing buildings are retrofitted. Cool roofs have a passive cooling effect on a building and can contribute to decreasing the annual cooling demand. In office buildings, thermal comfort has a considerable influence on workers’ performance. In these buildings cooling energy demands tend to be high due to the high internal thermal loads. This paper describes annual energy simulations of Spanish office stock to evaluate the potential energy savings of cool roofs within the context of building retrofitting. The energy demand and thermal comfort of representative office buildings is compared before and after the application of a cool roof coating, in the present time and in the year 2050, for all climate areas of Spain, under the most optimistic and most pessimistic future weather scenarios. Results showed that the cooling energy demand of Spanish office stock can be potentially reduced by 25 % when a cool roof is applied, and the annual energy demand for heating and cooling can be cut by 6 %, 11 % and 12 % in the present, the optimistic future scenario and the pessimistic future scenario, respectively.

This study is part of the research and development project WEF4- Build, reference no. 2023 CLIMA 00041, funded by the Departament de Recerca i Universitats and the Departament d’Acció Climàtica, Alimentació i Agenda Rural i del Fons Climàtic of the Catalan Govern- ment. This work was supported by the Catalan Agency AGAUR under their research group support programme (2021 SGR 00341). Dr Lídia Rincón would like to thank the Spanish Government’s Ministerio de Universidades for the grant Requalification of the Spanish university system for 2021–2023, funded by the European Union – NextGener- ationEU (Universitat de Lleida, Spain). This publication is part of grant TED2021-131446B-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/ 501100011033/ and by the European Union NextGenerationEU/PRTR. This publication is also part of grant PID2021-126643OB-I00, funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033/ and by ERDF A way of making Europe. The authors from the University of Lleida would like to thank the Catalan Government for the project awarded to their research group (2021 SGR 01370).

Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::7 - Energia Assequible i No Contaminant

Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::11 - Ciutats i Comunitats Sostenibles

Objectius de Desenvolupament Sostenible::13 - Acció per al Clima

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