Direct adiabatic cooling systems – Resilience to climate change for industrial building applications in a Mediterranean climate

This paper presents an analysis of the resilience to climate change of a direct adiabatic cooling system integrated within an industrial building. The system is a solution that utilizes humidified porous material to lower the air temperature without requiring external energy. In this study, the system is evaluated for two typical climate periods (historical and future) for a Mediterranean climate, using indicators of energy performance, thermal comfort and water consumption. The results reveal that compared to the reference case, the system reduces indoor overheating almost similarly between the typical historical climate (76%) and typical future climate (71%). In addition, climate change would increase total system energy consumption by 40% and double water consumption. However, climate change increases the performance of the system, particularly with regard to the reduction of interior overheating in relation to the energy consumption of the fan (+90%) and the volume of water evaporated (+19%). To finish, the system is resilient in the face of climate change, even if this is 38% weaker between typical historical and future climate.