Heat wave resilience in open Spaces: A case study of a Self-Sufficient cooling shelter

Abstract

Climate change intensifies urban uninhabitability due to increasingly frequent heat waves. To alleviate it, climatic shelters emerge as an initiative for the research community, which should deepen the integration of technologies that use natural resources for cooling. This work aims to evaluate a novel climatic shelter by characterizing its thermal behavior through an experimental study at a bus stop. It has the capacity to alleviate the thermal stress of its occupants thanks to cooling modules. The results allow to determine the capacity of the natural water-cooling system and the level of thermal storage, allowing to quantify the impact on the citizen by means of the COMFA comfort index. It is corroborated that the chilled water temperature reduces the surface temperature by 15 ◦C. The installation reduces overheating caused by solar radiation by 75 % compared to traditional shelters. It also demonstrates energy and electrical self-sufficiency even during high intensity heat waves. The shelter maintains daytime water temperature between 18 and 25 ◦C, even in heat waves exceeding 7 days and 45 ◦C air temperature. The COMFA index has been reduced to values between 70 and 120 W/m2 in 90 % of the worst weather conditions in Csa climates by K¨oppen Geiger, for the months of July and August 2023.