Daily enthalpy gradients and the effects of climate change on the thermal energy demand of buildings in the United States

•Daily enthalpy gradients for sensible and latent heat loads are first introduced.•The effect of Climate Change on the thermal demand of US buildings is studied.•These effects are city-specific. They are positive, marginal and mostly negative.•Negative effects could be driven by growth in dehumidification rather than cooling.•Negative effects on efficiency are marginal in comparison to the thermal demand. It is well understood that Climate Change could affect the thermal energy demand of buildings by increasing the energy requirements for cooling and decreasing those for heating. Today, it is not well understood if, besides heating and cooling, Climate Change could affect the future needs for (de)humidification in buildings. It is furthermore not clear what the extent of these effects could be across the borad territory of the United States. This knowledge gap makes it challenging to create energy conservation plans suitable for the diverse climatic conditions of cities in the United States. In a novel approach, we investigated the coupled effects of Climate Change on the requirements for heating, cooling and (de)humidification of buildings across 96 cities and 14 climate zones in the United States. For each location, we analyzed the effects of prototypical climate change scenarios for the 21st century. The new metric Daily Enthalpy Gradients was used to estimate heating, cooling and (de)humidification requirements. Our results suggest that climate change could have negative, marginal and positive effects on the thermal demand of buildings. We have found this effect to be city-specific. Contrary to common knowledge, negative effects could be driven by higher needs for dehumidification rather than cooling. Marginal effects could be driven by balancing needs in heating and dehumidification requirements. Positive effects could be driven by a drastic drop in heating demands and a marginal increase in dehumidification. We discuss the implications of these findings in the building technology sector and conclude with the advantages and limitations of our approach.