A climatic variable for constructing thermal performance lines for air-conditioned commercial buildings in Hong Kong.

The article examines the feasibility of using thermal performance lines in assessing the efficiency of using energy in air conditioned commercial buildings in Hong Kong. A regression study is outlined, which was aimed at identifying a suitable climatic variable that would yield linear thermal performance lines for Hong Kong commercial buildings. Researchers based the study on the monthly electricity consumption of 26 existing office/commercial buildings obtained from a recent survey. The weather parameters looked at included monthly mean outdoor temperature, outdoor air moisture content and global solar radiation, and their square and product terms. A regression analysis showed that the square of monthly mean outdoor temperature would be the most appropriate climatic variable. Also give explanations for why moisture content and global solar radiation were not important in the study, even though Hong Kong humidity is high for most of the year and the cooling load due to solar heat gain is a significant component of the design cooling load of air conditioned buildings.