Modelling for a Future Climate

One keyway that design teams can explore a building’s potential for overheating is by using an energy model.

Through dynamic simulation tools, traditional weather datasets, such as DEAP and IWEC, can be integrated with forward-looking climatic projections predicting a medium average temperature increase of somewhere between 1.3 and 2.7°C by 2050, allowing designers to assess overheating risk, optimise passive cooling and ventilation strategies, and establish adaptive measures to ensure low energy buildings remain energy efficient and resilient in the face of climate change (Mulville et al., 2025; UCAR, 2024).

Understand Weather Data

Understanding weather is a cornerstone of effective energy simulation in building designs.

Energy Simulation Weather Files are constructed using decades of historical weather observations, capturing typical climate conditions. They are further developed using climate projection models that estimate potential changes in the future climate such as increased temperatures and changes in seasonality.

These files give designers a good working set of data to inform simulation tools to get accurate predictions for building thermal performance, energy consumption and potential overheating. These simulations allow architects and engineers to exploit past weather patterns and future climate projections to optimize building designs for resilience and efficiency in relation to the life of the building (Mulville et al., 2025; Rijal & Nakaya, 2012).

Typical graph predicting the rise in temperature in Dublin from a 2025 study by Mulville.

Based on the use of dynamic simulation modelling (DSM) using Met Éireann Translate Weather Files