Appropriate Typical Weather Data for Applications in Building Related Codes of Practices in Hong Kong

Energy conservation is one of the essential elements in a green building design. In an energy-efficient building, the energy consumption for its operation can be reduced, leading to mitigation of greenhouse gas emission from power generation plant and contribution to sustainable development of a city. In Hong Kong, there is currently a number of building related codes of practice and design guidelines adopted for governing energy-efficient building or building services system design. For compliance with the codes of practices or design guidelines, performance-based approach can be an alternative path to fulfill the requirements. In performance-based approach, computer simulation is widely adopted to evaluate the thermal/energy performance of a building or building services system. Since climatic condition has a significant influence on the thermal/energy performance of buildings and energy systems, it is essential to input hourly meteorological data during computer simulation. As the climatic condition can vary significantly from year to year, there is a need to adopt typical weather data which can represent the long-term average weather condition. However, there is neither a common weather data file recommended to be used in the codes of practices/design guidelines nor clear definitions of the recommended weather data files in Hong Kong. Building professionals may have confusion on which weather data file should be used. The objective of this research project is to develop appropriate typical meteorological year weather data files for different applications in the building related codes of practice and design guidelines in Hong Kong. Moreover, the possibility of applying common weather data file for different applications in building related codes of practice and design guidelines in Hong Kong will be investigated. The methodology and findings are reported in this paper.