Correlating the urban microclimate and energy demands in hot climate Contexts: A hybrid review

Through demand for heating and cooling, local climate can affect the energy loads of buildings by up to 80%. The main limitation in this field of research is the single-vision approach, where studies focus on either the urban energy performance or the microclimate, neglecting to quantify their interactions. Additionally, hot climate contexts still lack research covering these topics. Using a hybrid systematic review, the present study aims to bridge these gaps. The review is structured into two main sections. The first section encompasses studies assessing the urban building energy modeling process, while the second section focuses on studies correlating building-scale energy demands with microclimate, with a focus on hot climate contexts. This review will help to identify the potential and limitations of coupling urban energy and microclimate modeling. The study also discusses the feasibility of such research to be widely applied in developing a new urban planning approach based on energy considerations. The results of this review indicate that improving outdoor thermal comfort is not necessarily guaranteed to improve energy efficiency. The study also summarizes packages of coupling tools to guide future researchers and presents an Urban Building Energy Modeling (UBEM) framework to support studies to achieve comprehensive outcomes.