An Investigation on the Impact of Retrofitting the Envelope of a Typical Small Office Building with PCM on the Building Energy Consumption in Different Zones of the US

The building sector is one of the most significant contributors to energy consumption, and it accounts for approximately 40% of the total energy consumption globally. Therefore, energy-efficient buildings received a lot of attention to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Previous studies showed that the integration of the Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system in buildings has great potential in reducing heating and cooling energy demand while maintaining occupants' thermal comfort. In the last couple of decades, Phase Change Materials (PCM) have received considerable attention as a Latent Heat TES system for passive heating and cooling applications in buildings. PCM can be used as building envelope material, and it can store or release heat during the phase change process. Previous researchers used PCM as a retrofitting option to enhance occupants' thermal comfort in residential buildings. The results showed that using PCM could be a great approach to saving energy. Most of the previous studies were conducted experimentally, and only a few studies tried this with building energy simulation. Therefore, in this study, we use the building energy simulation software (EnergyPlus) to investigate the effect of different types of PCMs on the energy efficiency of a typical small office building in different climate conditions. Results show that, depending on the climate zones, the performance of using the PCM is different. Also, the building energy results varied with the type of the PCMs and the thickness of the PCMs.