Abstract
The present work reports on a methodology to assess the climatic severity of a particular geographic region as compared to specific information available in the current regulations. The viability for each of the 387 municipalities in the Autonomous Community of Extremadura (Spain) is analysed, making a distinction between those with reliable climate reports and those for which no such information is available. In the case study, although the weather conditions in Extremadura are quite homogeneous according to the Spanish Technical Building Code (STBC 2015) classification and most areas are associated to zone C4 (soft winters and hot summers), the southern area in the region is associated to zone D1, similar to the north of Spain, where winters and summers are cool, which does not coincide with the actual climate in the south of Extremadura. The general climatic homogeneity in Extremadura was also highlighted with the new procedure, predominating zone C4, but unexpected or unreal climatic zoning was not generated, giving place to a consistent spatial distribution of zones throughout the region. Consequently, the proposed method allows a more accurate climatic zoning of any region in agreement with the Spanish legislation on energy efficiency in buildings, which would enhance the setting of thermal demand rates according to the actual climatic characterisation of the area in which a particular municipality is located.
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Acknowledgments
This work has been fully supported by the Extremadura University and the Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Materials Department.
Our thanks are due to Consejería de Fomento, Vivienda, Ordenación del Territorio y Turismo, Gobierno de Extremadura, Consejería de Agricultura, Desarrollo Rural, Medio Ambiente y Energía, Gobierno de Extremadura, Agencia Estatal de Meteorología (AEMET), Grupo de Termotecnia de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Ingenieros de Sevilla and Agencia Extremeña de la Energía (AGENEX).
The authors are also very grateful to one anonymous reviewer of this paper for providing constructive comments which have contributed to improve the final version.
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Moral, F.J., Pulido, E., Ruíz, A. et al. Climatic zoning for the calculation of the thermal demand of buildings in Extremadura (Spain). Theor Appl Climatol 129, 881–889 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1815-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-016-1815-9