Urban Heat Island Effect on Building Electricity use
The campus-wide electricity use in University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) is highly correlated with the outdoor 2-meter surface air temperature, at hourly, daily, and monthly scales, with the correlation coefficients normally > 0.70 in 2014 and 2015. Nevertheless, 2-meter surface air temperature has evident spatial heterogeneity, determined by underlying surface types and surrounding vegetation fraction, with up-to 6 °F difference between a roof on campus and a vegetation-covered airport for the clear days on Julys 2014 and 2015. Such urban heat island effect (UHI) signal suggests that urban local surface air temperatures, instead of those in an nearby airport, may be needed in order to accurately forecast the electricity use for a given urban community. In addition to outdoor weather conditions, campus electricity use amount is also affected by other factors such as human behavioral pattern, for example, weekdays vs weekends. Therefore, interdisciplinary effort from weather system, society, and mechanical engineering is needed to fully understand and thus forecast electricity use.
