Climate change mitigation: thermal comfort improvement in Mediterranean social dwellings through dynamic test cells modelling

Global warming will lead to adverse consequences for human health and well-being. This research ought to determine whether passive low-cost strategies freely controlled by users (ventilation strategies, solar shadings or window operation) could be applied in low-income dwellings to meet acceptable thermal comfort to retrofit the Mediterranean social housing stock of southern Spain towards climate change. On-site measurements registered in some test cells (controlled environment with no users’ influence) were used to calibrate dynamic energy simulation models. The impact of several future periods, climate zones of southern Spain and orientations on thermal comfort was assessed. The results show that climate change triggers a more significant increase in outdoor temperatures in summer than in winter. Should ventilation be kept to minimum and blinds opened during daytime in winter, higher comfort would be achieved, with great differences between orientations and south reporting the best results. The higher the outdoor temperatures due to climate change, the higher the percentage of comfort hours (i.e. 23–68% in the present and 50–75% in 2080). In summer, natural night ventilation and blinds closed during daytime lead to the best comfort result, with negligible temperature differences between orientations. Future climate change scenarios worsen the percentage of comfort hours (i.e. 96–100% in the present, while up to 17% in 2080). Mechanical ventilation and blind aperture schedules were found to have the highest influence on overheating discomfort. Likewise, mechanical and natural ventilation schedules had the highest impact on undercooling discomfort.