Subdivision of hot summer and cold winter zone for building thermal performance

Climate zoning for building thermal performance is the preliminary work to the development of building energy efficiency codes. Finer multi-factor climate zoning can provide more detailed and accurate information for policy-makers, planners and designers. Presents the further fine climate subdivision for the hot summer and cold winter zone using the clustering method. The hierarchy structure is applied: the first layer includes a principal factor degree-days, the most sensitive index for cooling and heating demand; the second layer includes relative humidity, solar radiation and wind speed. This structure gives necessary guidance to thermal design of building envelope. Furthermore, it helps the decision of passive technologies like natural ventilation and shading device, which will benefit overall building energy efficiency. Based on the recent 10 years weather data collected from meteorological stations, divides the hot summer and cold winter zone into 7 sub-zones, with 3 to 4 clusters generated for each secondary factor.