“Put simply, cool roofs cool the globe,” says Concordia engineering professor Hashem Akbari.
Hashem Akbari
For the study, Akbari and his co-author, Mirata Hosseini, a Concordia PhD candidate, used modelling software to simulate energy consumption for several prototype office and retail buildings in four cold-climate cities in North America: Anchorage, Milwaukee, Montreal and Toronto.
They found that cool roofs for the simulated buildings resulted in annual energy expenditure savings in all municipalities.
A cool roof on a new, medium-sized office building would save four dollars per 100 square metres in Montreal, $10 per 100 square metres in Toronto and $14 per 100 square metres in Milwaukee and Anchorage. The research also showed that cool roofs can reduce the peak electric demand of the retail buildings by up to five watts per square metre.
“Our study proves that cool roofs for commercial buildings are a net saver of energy in all climates that use air conditioning during the summer,” says Akbari.
“In cooler climates, installing cool roofs may even prevent buying an air conditioner altogether. Even in non-air-conditioned buildings, cool roofs improve comfort during hot summer days. And in extreme cases, these roofs may even save lives by reducing the risk of heat stroke.”
Many municipalities already prescribe cool roofs in the construction of new buildings and for re-roofing existing buildings. This study proves that those rules should also apply in colder climates. It is Akbari’s hope that cool roofs become the global standard.
“On a large scale, cool roofs can moderate the air temperature surrounding a building, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate the urban heat island effect,” he says.
“Put simply, cool roofs cool the globe.”
Akbari is organizing and chairing the Fourth International Conference on Countermeasures to Urban Heat Islands, being held May 30 to June 1 in Singapore. More than 300 scientists, practitioners, and policy makers will gather to discuss the implementation of heat island mitigation technologies.
Among the topics to be discussed is the development of policies requiring the installation of cool roofs on all buildings that are air-conditioned.
Partners in research: This study was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Read the Concordia research study about cool roofs in cold cities, led by Hashem Akbari, professor in the Department of Building, Civil and Environmental Engineering.
